


after you've gone

by celaenos



Category: The Originals (TV)
Genre: Adulting is hard, Alternate Season/Series 05, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Big Bang Challenge, Character Study, Female Friendship, Found Family Feels, Gen, HAYLEY FUCKING LIVES BC FUCK OFF, Motherhood, Multifandom Big Bang, Post-Season/Series 04, cami fucking LIVES bc i want her too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 32,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22588834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celaenos/pseuds/celaenos
Summary: They’re quiet together for a minute or two, just listening to the sounds of the bayou that Freya hates and Hayley loves. Hayley reaches over and takes Freya’s hand and squeezes it tight, grateful beyond measure that she is here, even though she doesn’t want to be. Hayley isn’t her family in the same way as Rebekah, or Kol, or any of them. Freya didn’t choose her, like she chose Keelin. Hayley was just tossed into the mix and Freya showed up and went along with it because of Hope. All of them are here because of Hope.(or, Hayley, in between seasons 4 & 5).
Relationships: Hayley Marshall & Freya Mikaelson, Hayley Marshall & Hope Mikaelson, background Caroline Forbes/Camille O'Connell, background Keelin Malraux/Freya Mikaelson, background Marcel Gerard/Rebekah Mikaelson
Comments: 26
Kudos: 56





	1. act i

**Author's Note:**

> thank you very much to Blonde Bitz for creating the artwork that accompanies each chapter, being such a lovely partner to work with, and for all the hard work modding this big bang challenge! you can find links to just her artwork [here](https://blondebitz.livejournal.com/480054.html) as well as throughout the fic!
> 
> a few quick notes:
> 
> this takes place in between seasons 4 & 5, but reimagines an entierly different season 5. i've taken the bits that i liked and scrapped the bits i hated, namely, hayley and cami both living, but a few other small things as well. 
> 
> elijah does not lose his memories, because i always thought that was incredibly dumb. cami, caroline, and hayley all like each other because FUCK SEXIST SHIP WARS. 
> 
> this is a hayley character study, above all else, because i love and miss her and she deserves better. i hope you enjoy!

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184664496@N04/49498846382/in/dateposted/)

* * *

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184664496@N04/49498620416/in/dateposted/)

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They move out of the compound. 

She’s not wholly sure which of them actually makes the decision, but Hayley and Freya both look over at each other and then stare at the walls; it's clear that neither of them wants to continue on living here without the rest of their family. 

Hope offers up no arguments, so Hayley quickly gets to work packing up their things and then drags Freya down into the bayou. 

(Freya has plenty of arguments against _that_ particular decision, but, all of her siblings are gone and she is the most fiercely loyal person that Hayley has ever met, so—she’s not going to leave Hayley or Hope. No matter how much she complains about the swamp, or the humidity, or the mosquitos. She could. Hayley keeps reminding her that she _can_ go see them. She can _go_ with one of them, all of them, even, if she wants to. The Hallow isn’t inside her, it won’t do any damage. But—)

Freya gets absolutely _plastered_ on a Tuesday their third week out in the bayou and then she screams at Hayley for nearly a full hour straight. She sucks in a watery breath and then tells Hayley to fuck off with no malice whatsoever and then goes and passes out in her room.

The next morning she is up before dawn, making them all breakfast with red-rimmed eyes as if it never happened at all. Keelin sits silently in the corner and shakes her head when Hayley opens her mouth to try and start their fight all over again. 

Neither of them leaves. Hayley doesn't know how to voice the grateful tug that sits heavy in her chest, one that sounds a lot like her adoptive parents, kicking her out, like no one ever picking her first and _staying,_ so she doesn’t try to. After Hope bounds into the kitchen and starts chattering away about the potential shape of her pancakes with Keelin, Hayley walks over to Freya and slips her arms around Freya’s back and holds on tight. Her frame is slender and frail and Hayley has to focus hard in the moment not to squeeze her too tightly and crush all of her bones. She wants to; she wants to wrap herself up with Freya and hold on for dear life. She doesn’t know how it came to be that they are the only two left, but they are, and Hayley is so, so terribly relieved that Freya chose to stay. She doesn’t know how to say the words. Freya turns them around after a minute, gripping Hayley back tightly around the neck and pressing her cheek to Hayley’s forehead, wrapping her whole tall body around Hayley’s. They stay like that, silent, for about a minute or so till Hope calls out to them both. 

“Is everything okay?” she asks, far more worried than a seven-year-old should have to be at the sight of her mother and aunt sharing a hug. 

“Everything’s fine, sweetie,” Hayley assures her. “Go on and grab your backpack. I’ll walk you to school.” 

Hope lights up and runs into her bedroom. The idea of _finally_ getting to go to a real school with kids her own age is too enticing to keep on worrying about her father or her aunt and uncles, scattered to the wind on her behalf. Keelin shoots them both a look that very much reads as _I told you so, idiots_ and Hayley and Freya both sip at their coffee and avoid her gaze. It’s awful, knowing that they lost. Knowing that Hope _still_ doesn’t have all of her family back, might never, even, but— 

Having Freya and Keelin and Mary helps. Not having to constantly be on the run anymore helps _so much._ It’s still awful, but it’s bearable. 

It has to be. 

…

…

Hope loves her new school. This is New Orleans, so she is not the only supernatural kid attending, not by a long shot. It takes a bit of wavering, but Hayley ends up putting down the name _Marshall_ down on her fudged homeschooling transcripts. Something about it seems safer, even as she watches Freya wince at the erasure of her name.

“Smart,” she says. Hayley nods and leaves it at that.

Hope comes home chattering excitedly about all of the things you get to learn about in second grade, and one of the pack kids that she already recognizes named Henry, and some of the witches that Vincent told her to introduce herself to. 

She’s excited and happy, and she’s learning to have some semblance of a normal life, and Hayley couldn’t ask for more under the circumstances if she tried. 

…

…

Hayley saunters into Rousseau’s and plops down into a booth next to Vincent. “Hi,” she says, smiling at him awkwardly. They don’t hate each other, but they’re not exactly what Hayley would consider to be friends, either. Vincent is wary of all of them, save Cami and maybe on a good day, Freya. But, they all respect each other and they all want the same thing, so—

Factions are back. Peace talks are back. Hayley is the alpha and she’s got a hell of a lot of responsibility, nowadays. 

Cami slips over and passes Hayley a glass of water with a wink and says that she’ll be five more minutes, tops, just as Marcel walks in and sits down beside Hayley. His arm slides across her shoulders, casual, easy-like and Hayley smiles. She has always liked him, and it’s far easier to have him be on her side than not. She likes the friendship that they’ve slipped into over the past few weeks. He’s missing Rebekah and Klaus just as much as Hayley is (not Elijah, probably, but two out of three isn’t bad). He gets it, and that matters right now.

Josh isn’t far behind Marcel but he looks agitated and keeps on tugging at the collar of his shirt. Marcel’s lips are pressed into a thin line but then he grins wide and easy and calls out to Cami and teases Vincent and fools exactly no one. 

Josh doesn’t say it until Freya and Keelin get there and Cami finally sits down, but once he does Hayley’s not actually all that surprised. 

“I’ll be back,” he insists. “I’m sure of it. I just… there’s a lot of the world that I haven’t seen, and a break from NOLA would be nice, and—”

“Josh,” Marcel cuts in, soft. “It’s all good,” he raises his glass and his lips aren’t that thin line anymore, his smile almost seems real. Sad, but real. “To seeing the world,” he toasts. 

They all clink their glasses. Josh chugs his, and then the three more that Cami passes his way, and then he slips out, not wanting to stay any longer than he has to. 

“So,” Vincent says. “You and Cami gonna be the solo Vampire and Human faction leaders, then?”

Marcel does the cocky, almost fake smile again and shrugs. “We’ll see.” 

Vincent doesn’t look too happy, but Hayley sees Freya reach over and pinch his thigh underneath the table.

“So,” Hayley says, changing the subject. “I want to talk about relocating some of the wolves out of the bayou.”

Vincent and Marcel go tense, arguments ready on their tongue, but Freya wants out of there more than anyone and Cami’s been on Hayley’s side on this for a while now. Hayley listens carefully to their arguments and calmly shoots each one down. “It doesn’t have to be everyone,” she insists. “Lots of the wolves _like_ the bayou.”

“God knows why,” Freya mumbles. Hayley kicks her underneath the table and finds satisfaction in the way that she grunts in surprise.

“Everyone else has at least _a_ neighborhood in the city that they can claim. If we’re actually trying to build something lasting here, then it’s only fair that the wolves have one too. I’m not going to back down on this.”

“She shouldn’t have to,” Cami adds. Vincent and Marcel both deflate at Cami’s words.

“Fine,” Vincent says. “Pull up a city map. Let’s talk.”

It all gets very boring and technical after that and Hayley is only delighted when the clock strikes 2:55 and she has to bolt out to pick up Hope from school.

…

…

Hope is miserable whenever she remembers that Klaus, Rebekah, and Elijah can’t ever come home. Rebekah calls every Thursday evening and Hope eagerly tells her every single mundane detail about her week (including what she had for breakfast and when she brushed her teeth) and that helps, but each time that they hang up, Hope is petulant. She either snaps at everyone for at least an hour, or she climbs up onto Hayley’s lap and refuses to move for the duration of the evening. Hayley doesn’t blame her. She misses Rebekah too, and she is technically twenty-eight, not seven.

It’s even worse whenever Klaus calls. He isn’t nearly as punctual or reliable as his sister is and Hayley honestly doesn’t think that he will ever be. She knows that he is miserable. He doesn’t do well alone—especially not apart from Elijah—and it shows. He locks it down for his phone calls with Hope, but everyone else can see the cracks of it the minute that Hope isn’t looking anymore.

He calls Elijah with far more frequency than his calls to Hope, and part of Hayley wants to scream at him for it, but mostly, she’s just grateful that he is keeping it together enough to pick up the phone and call her at all.

…

…

Being the alpha is _hard._

Hayley has always known this, it’s not new information, but it comes as a shock that it feels a hell of a lot harder now that it’s not life or death stakes anymore. When it’s not running and running and running, scrambling for purchase and one final thing to save them all, but instead, an everyday grind of helping out her people, day in and day out. Mundane problems are somehow much harder for Hayley to deal with than the end of the world problems.

It is a very annoying revelation to have. 

Lisina, the guardian of Hope’s new friend Henry, becomes a solid steady presence at Hayley’s side with the pack. As close to a beta as she’ll ever get, probably. Keelin takes a while to fit in—her entire pack has been dead for years and she’s always fought against her werewolf side in a way that Hayley never did—but, after about a year or so, the three of them have a really good rhythm going. Keelin’s doctor skills come in exceptionally handy for the members of the pack who are more recluse, prefer to stay out in the bayou, and don’t have health insurance.

In the first year of living back out in the bayou, Hayley:

(a) learns how to set up and build an entire crib from scratch for her neighbor throughout a very frustrating afternoon;

(b) deals with the in-faction fights and zoning laws that come along with relocating a solid half of her pack into the New Orleans East area;

(c) tries to get Hope to eat at _least_ three vegetables every day and tries not to beat herself up when she fails;

(d) dodges the flirty looks coming from Cami’s cousin as he spends the year as the new cook at Rousseau’s;

(e) writes letters to Klaus (sometimes to Elijah) and tries to stay out of Rebekah and Marcel’s endless fights;

(f) sort of accidentally, but not quite, has sex with a new vampire in town that she meets in a bar, and is interrupted by a horrified Freya who comes back from the movie early to grab an extra sweatshirt for Hope;

(g) cries in Mary’s arms for no describable reason that she can think of, three days before Hope’s eight birthday;

(h) helps paint multiple houses and bedrooms, carries heavy boxes, distracts children, and is declared to be no help whatsoever with a hammer as she helps members of her pack move into their new homes;

(i) avoids listening in on Freya and Keelin’s fights about Doctors Without Borders and tries not to pick a side in the matter;

(j) works tirelessly with Freya to try and find a cure for the magic that’s coursing through their family’s veins and comes up with jack all;

(k) turns twenty-nine, but still looks exactly the same as she did when she was twenty-one.

It’s both the longest and the shortest year of her life. After Hope has gone off to bed and Keelin’s shuffling some of her paperwork for the next day in the living room, Freya slips out onto the porch and joins Hayley. She’s got two mugs in her hands and passes one over to Hayley with a soft smile before squatting down next to her on the steps. Her shoulder brushes up against Hayley’s and the warmth of her skin fills Hayley up with something that she doesn’t bother naming.

“Happy birthday,” Freya says, low. The cicadas are hollering at them, filling up the bayou with a chorus of sound that echoes through Hayley’s skull. She focuses her senses for a moment and then tunes the sound out a bit, listening instead to Freya’s steady breathing.

“Thanks,” she says and sips at the tea Freya made.

They’re quiet together for a minute or two, just listening to the sounds of the bayou that Freya hates and Hayley loves. Hayley reaches over and takes Freya’s hand and squeezes it tight, grateful beyond measure that she is here, even though she doesn’t want to be. Hayley isn’t her family in the same way as Rebekah, or Kol, or any of them. Freya didn’t choose her, like she chose Keelin. Hayley was just tossed into the mix and Freya showed up and went along with it because of Hope. All of them are here because of Hope.

“Not true,” Freya says and Hayley frowns. She knows that she didn’t voice that thought out loud. If Freya is experimenting with magic that lets her read minds, Hayley is going to have something to say about it. Freya laughs and knocks their shoulders together further, holding onto Hayley’s hand and looking out at the swamp. “I just know you,” she assures Hayley. “Nothing nefarious, promise.”

Hayley turns and stares at her. “Do you?” she asks. Freya looks a bit surprised at the question. Maybe even a little hurt. “I mean… all I’m saying is that… never mind, it’s dumb.”

“No,” Freya insists. “Tell me.” 

Hayley doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to sound desperate or weak or give Freya a reason to think anything less than she already does of it. Instead, she just shrugs and sips at her tea, looking out at the water. Freya is disappointed, Hayley can tell, but for once she doesn’t push. She sips her own tea and stays there with Hayley in the quiet as the last year settles onto her bones.

…

…

Caroline Forbes shows up in New Orleans a few weeks after Hayley’s birthday.

Hayley remembers her—she’s pretty sure that she snapped her neck, once, back in Mystic Falls. Now, she’s got a pair of six-year-olds in tow and looks… unsure isn’t the right word, but it’s edging somewhere close to it.

“Hi,” Caroline says, suddenly going overly perky. It grates on Hayley the same way it always did with girls like Caroline, back when she was younger. But that was immature and Hayley’s trying to move past that and so she grits her teeth and squashes any negative thoughts down. Caroline jams her hand out into the air between them. “Klaus has told me a lot about you over the years. It’s nice to finally meet again under better circumstances.”

So, she definitely remembers the whole neck-snapping thing, then.

They’re not teenagers anymore. They’re not running for their lives or making snap judgment calls on trust. They’re adults. They’re mothers. Hayley sticks her hand out and takes Caroline’s with a smile that hopefully looks as inviting as she’s trying to be.

“Hayley, nice to meet you again.”

Caroline starts chatting about a boarding school for supernatural kids back in Mystic Falls. She talks faster than just about anyone that Hayley has ever met, and it takes her a second to catch up and pay attention. “Oh, Hope is… there are magical kids here.”

“I know,” Caroline says. “I just thought that I should let you know. It’s an option if you want it. The girls are starting in the fall for their second year and… well, last year went really well.”

(They sort of skimmed over the whole… magically impregnated thing pretty quickly and while Hayley is sure as hell curious, she sort of knows the drill, so she doesn’t pry further).

“I think it’s important for Hope to be around her family right now, but thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.”

Caroline is jittery. Lizzie and Josie climb up on top of the bar and then run around chasing each other. Cami makes them Shirley Temples and smiles at Caroline, and neither of them says, _I have a thing for Klaus_ but both of them know it about each other anyway. Hayley waits for a fight to erupt; something catty and petty that will have to turn into her sweeping up a pair of six-year-olds up and entertaining them for a while, but it never comes. Cami smiles at Caroline and it’s genuine. A little wary, maybe, because she has managed to survive as one of the only humans around vampires for a long time and it’s not by trusting every person who comes waltzing through that bar door with a past that’s tied to the Mikaelsons.

Caroline isn’t seventeen and desperate for affection anymore, so she smiles back at Cami just as genuinely. She compliments her necklace and the drinks that she makes for her daughters and asks if she knows of any good apartment listings in the area.

“Wait,” Hayley snaps back to attention. Lizzie had been trying to get her to curl up her tongue in the same way that Josie can, devilish little face infectious, but Hayley whips around and looks over at Caroline, now. “I thought you lived in Virginia.”

“I do. Did. I…” Caroline shoots a look over at her daughters and Cami reacts quickly, asking them if they want to pop over to the flower shop across the street.

Caroline nods her approval when the twins look over towards her and then they grab Cami and all but drag her outside. Caroline sighs once they’re all out of the empty bar. Hayley waits her out. They don’t know each other well enough for her to read Caroline’s mood or feel the urge to pry. As it is she’s mostly just curious.

Also, Klaus has a type, and from the looks of things, she was never really it. Hayley laughs to herself, so grateful that she’s at a place with him now that’s comfortable and easy and solid in a way that she never fucking thought it’d be.

“The school was always more Ric’s idea than it was mine,” Caroline says. She’s staring at her water glass, contemplative, and Hayley stays quiet and listens. “He’s the academic. I love it, don’t get me wrong,” Caroline adds, quick. “I actually thrive on like… the administration aspect of it. I love telling people what to do. I love coming up with solutions for problems, I like the kids. I like the job,” she shrugs. “But…” she picks at the coaster resting in between the two of them. “I’ve lived in Mystic Falls my whole life. I thought — I don’t know, maybe I’d feel exactly the same if Stefan were still alive but, I feel like I should be experiencing more. I obviously never planned on dying at seventeen, or becoming magically pregnant, or even staying in their lives at all, if I’m being honest. But, I don’t know, I need a change. At least, part of the time. Klaus always used to talk about how much he loved this city, I thought…” she shrugs again, trailing off and laughing, self-deprecating.

“Well, I’m sure that you’ll fit right in,” Hayley says. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Caroline smiles. “I’m going to take you up on that.”

Hayley believes her.

…

…

Marcel hates Caroline.

Or, rather, he _loves_ her and he knows that she and Rebekah have a weird, competitive, shitty (but sort of not?) relationship thing going on and he is terrified to do anything to fuck up his relationship any further than he already has.

Staying in NOLA instead of traveling with Rebekah hasn’t been going well for anyone involved, from the sounds of it. Hayley is trying—so hard—to stay out of it and not pick a side and the truth of it is, she wants both of them around and that’s not something that can happen right now.

Marcel is a good leader when he stops trying to be like Klaus and puts his ego aside and actually gives a shit about the people that he’s looking out for. Caroline is good at reminding him of that fact. It works, whether Rebekah likes it or not.

(Hayley goes and does something _absolutely fucking stupid_ and mutters that fact underneath her breathe during a very annoying and lengthy phone call rant on a Thursday and she swears, she can _feel_ Rebekah simmering through the cell. She is promptly hung up on, and though Rebekah still calls every Thursday without fail, she calls Freya’s phone and talks to Hope there and refuses to speak to Hayley for a solid month).

Caroline is mopey with missing her daughters and she starts hanging out with Hayley and Hope to compensate a bit. At first, it’s strange. All that Hayley really knows about Caroline is secondhand information from Tyler Lockwood, Klaus, Rebekah, and _Katherine fucking Pierce._ None of them are what Hayley would ever consider to be impartial parties. Hayley’s only prior experience with her was annoyance—for taking up Tyler’s time when she needed to get the hybrids for Katherine. With that out the window and both of them with a hell of a lot more life experience, she doesn’t quite know where they land with each other. She is great with Hope and she mostly just seems to miss her kids and Hayley’s fine with sharing hers, a little. So, it’s not all that hard to let Caroline tag along on ice cream missions or runs through the bayou or homework help.

It’s all the other stuff when Hope isn’t there, that’s the issue.

Per usual, Cami saves the day.

The weather’s getting cooler and December is almost upon them, and Hayley has been thrumming with nervous energy and avoiding Declan like the plague, and Cami is getting real sick of everyone’s shit. She hollers at Hayley for ten minutes, then she calls up Rebekah and hollers at her over the phone, too. She orders Marcel to go visit her for the weekend and then declares that everyone who is not Hayley, Caroline, Freya, Keelin, or Lisina, needs to get the hell out of her bar.

(She gives Hope a kiss and a Shirley Temple as she ushers her outside with Mary; everyone else just gets a glare).

Hayley plops down into a booth beside Freya, trying not to look as petulant as she feels and probably failing, from the exasperated look Cami gives them all.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she asks.

“Look, Cami—” Keelin starts.

“I don’t wanna hear it,” she cuts her off. “Everyone here is drinking and dancing and shutting the fuck up for the next two hours. Then we are going to eat greasy burgers made by my cousin, and go for a walk.”

No one makes to argue further.

Hayley downs a few shots and then climbs up on top of the bar. She used to know how to have a good time and she’s not going to let some ancient curse take that away from her. Maybe Klaus, Rebekah, Elijah, and Kol are gone, maybe they’ll find a way to get them back and maybe they won’t, but Hayley can’t just put her whole fucking life on hold until then. She can’t let Hope.

They’re _alive._ The factions are _working._ Crime is down, Hope loves school, and Hayley loves being the alpha. She’s where her parents always wanted her to be. For now, maybe forever, that’s going to have to be enough.

Hayley spins on the bar and finds that Caroline is suddenly right there beside her. She takes a single breath and then opens her arms. Caroline pauses, then fucking _beams_ and spins into them. Hayley doesn’t stop dancing until Declan comes laughing into the room, two full brown paper bags in his hands, grease seeping into the bottom.

“You’re having a nice night, cuz,” he drawls towards Cami.

“I am,” she declares and snatches one of the bags and digs into a burger. “God, these are good.”

Her cousin wiggles his eyebrows at her and she slugs him. Declan turns his gaze up towards Hayley and holds a burger out to her. She digs in gleefully and releases a similar groan of contentment. Declan’s grin goes ridiculous and smug. Hayley gives him an unimpressed look that doesn't manage to conceal the way that the corner of her mouth is twitching and Declan preens.

“Let’s go for that walk,” Hayley announces and leaps off the bar, snatching the other bag out of Declan’s hand and walking with purpose towards the front door. Caroline is at her heels immediately, the rest of them slower to follow.

“Well, he sure is cute,” Caroline whispers and grabs a burger out of the bag for herself. “And he likes you.”

“Shut up,” Hayley says, very maturely.

Caroline only laughs and hip-checks Hayley, turning back around and passing out food for everyone.

They walk out along the Mississippi River and gorge themselves on Declan’s burgers. Hayley turns and looks behind her and sees Freya and Keelin, looking content and arm in arm for the first time in a week and smiles. Lisina and Cami are excitedly talking about the plot to some movie that Hayley hasn’t seen, and Caroline is walking beside her, quiet and looking out at the water.

“I’m glad that I came here,” she whispers, more to herself than anything but Hayley smiles around her burger. “I thought maybe I made a mistake,” she admits, now truly talking to Hayley. “I miss the girls so much and I can’t believe it but, I actually miss Mystic Falls a little, but—” she trails off and Hayley passes her the last burger. Caroline accepts it, chewing quietly as the river whirls beside them. A minute or so later she asks, “is this anywhere near where you thought your life would go?”

Hayley snorts. “No.”

“Not even like, five years ago?”

Hayley thinks about it. Five years ago, she was on the run with a toddler, dragging her family around in coffins and trying to raise her daughter and keep them both alive and figure out a way to save their family all by herself. All she could envision or hope for was a cure and a finish line where they were all together. After that… it was always just a blank space, waiting to be filled.

“No,” she answers. “But… apart from the whole, ancient magic being a dick and separating my family thing, I think I like where I am.”

“Me too,” Caroline hums. “Well… my family isn’t separate. They’re dead. Or… mostly dead. But, children are supposed to outlive their parents anyway,” she shrugs, going quiet. Hayley can see her lip wobble, just a smidge, and she is filled with a sudden burst of affection for Caroline that nearly bowls her over.

“That doesn’t mean your family is gone,” she says, with perhaps a bit more ferocity than either of them was expecting. If Lisina and Keelin can hear, they don’t acknowledge it. Caroline’s smile goes _real_ wobbly, now, and she smiles through it. “I suppose not.”

“I wanna jump in the river,” Lisina suddenly announces.

“No,” Cami looks horrified. “No, god that’s a _terrible_ idea—”

Lisina strips down to her underwear and leaps in.

“Fuck,” Cami breathes.

“Ew,” Freya mumbles. “It’s got to be dirty as hell.”

“Seems nice, actually,” Keelin starts.

“Don’t you dare,” Freya hisses, grabbing at her.

“Lisina, you’re gonna freeze!” Cami hollers.

“It does seem kind of cold,” Caroline hums, looking out at the water with a curious gaze.

Hayley shucks her clothes and dives after Lisina, her friends shrieking behind her and the cool water embracing her and waking her body up.

She starts to fill in the blank space.

…

…

The second Christmas with everyone separated goes much worse than the first one.

Mary is sick.

She tells Hayley only after she absolutely has to. She grumbles through the whole conversation, _damn docs won’t let me drive myself to chemo, bastards. Gotta have a name on my contact list, yours is as good as any, kid._

Hayley cries. Then she straightens up her shoulders and says that they can do this, with a firm nod that even has Mary going a bit soft and nodding back. Hayley takes Mary to her first session two days before Christmas Eve and holds her hair back as she pukes, her whole body shaking, the next morning. Mary is determined not to tell Hope, not to have her worry about anyone else, but that can’t last for long. Everyone is on edge the morning they wake up and open presents. Mary feels awful, can barely drag herself out of bed, and Keelin has finally made the decision to go to Doctors Without Borders, and Freya is furious and sad and Hope picks up on all of it.

She takes off her bracelet and screams in frustration and the front door flies off its hinges and out into the bayou.

Hayley has been Officially Declared Useless with a Hammer, so she doesn’t try to put it back on. She takes Hope into her bedroom and gives her a lecture about using her magic in frustration while Freya and Keelin fix her kid’s mess. Mary falls asleep and then Hope takes an angry nap and Hayley goes for a run to avoid listening in on Freya and Keelin’s final argument before she packs up and leaves.

She has had shittier Christmases, that’s for sure, but this makes it into the top ten.

…

…

Keelin holds her tight and whispers, “Please, take care of her,” into Hayley’s temple. Hayley gives her a sharp nod and grips just a little tighter.

“Take care of yourself,” she orders. “Fucking come back in one piece after saving half the world’s babies.”

Keelin snorts. “Will do.”

Freya hovers on the porch, wrapped up in like eight layers against the chill of the early morning December air that's coming off the bayou that she _hates._ She wraps herself up and stands there and says goodbye to the woman that she loves and refuses to go with because of Hayley.

Sort of.

Because of her siblings. Because of Hope. Because she won’t let herself be happy until they are. She won’t start to fill in the space if they’re not allowed to, yet.

It’s bullshit. Hayley told her so, told her to _go_ and actually meant it. (She wants her here, selfishly. She hates Keelin just a little bit for this, too, but she had meant it. Hayley has people. Freya can go and be free and in love and happy, Hayley isn’t ever going to be the one to stop her). Freya had looked at her coldly and told Hayley that was the cruelest thing she ever could have said, and hasn’t spoken to her since. Being iced out by the Mikaelson sisters fucking _sucks._ Hayley’s grateful that after Marcel spent a long weekend with Rebekah, and then Caroline found her in New York and they… punched each other? fucked each other? Hayley has no idea, but it’s all settled and fine now and Rebekah is talking to her again. Or, it’s as fine as it’s going to ever be with Marcel wanting to be in New Orleans, even if that means he is not with Rebekah full time. Hayley doesn’t think that she could handle both sisters not talking to her at the same time.

She doesn’t think she can handle living with Freya and not talking to her at all. She wouldn’t have thought that would be where she was, seven years ago, but—

Here they are.

Freya swallows thickly and walks down into the dewy, cold grass, barefoot. Keelin releases Hayley and she steps back and Freya slips into the space that she had been occupying. The two women just stare at each other. They’ve had every argument that there is to have about this in the last year and a half. The problem is, they’re both sort of right, and they know it.

“I love you,” Keelin says. Hayley steps further back, onto the porch. Mary and Hope are inside, Keelin’s already said tearful goodbyes to them.

“I know,” Freya whispers, looking down at her bare feet. She shivers and Keelin immediately wraps her arms around her girlfriend.

“I’m coming back,” Keelin promises.

“I know that, too.”

Hayley steps further back, hovering in the doorway, letting the chill into the house.

Freya lifts up her chin, straightens her spine, and accepts what’s happening. “I love you,” she says. “I’ll see you in a few months.”

Keelin kisses her, and that’s when Hayley finally slips inside to give them a moment to themselves.

Hope is sullen most of the day and then she abandons them to go play at Henry’s in the afternoon. Mary goes off to take a nap and Freya corners Hayley in the kitchen when she slips out of her own room to get another cup of coffee.

“Don’t you ever tell me to leave again,” she says, voice clear as a bell.

“Freya—” Hayley starts, “that’s not what I meant—”

“Fucking, _don’t,_ ” she says.

Hayley presses on, because she never did quite know when to give up. “I don’t want you to put your life on hold because of us. You deserve to be happy, Freya.”

“Did you ever stop to consider that maybe I am?”

No. Hayley absolutely did not.

“You hate it here,” she says, holding her arms up at Freya, still donned in something like four layers at least, cursing out the fucking swamp at every opportunity that she gets.

“I hate the _swamp,_ ” she says, rolling her eyes and moving to pour herself coffee too. “I hate that my siblings are all scattered to the wind,” she grabs the mug out of Hayley’s hands and fills it too, sort of shoving it back at her in a way that spills the hot liquid out and would do a hell of a bit of damage if she weren’t a hybrid. “I hate that Keelin wants to go so far away. I fucking love you and Hope. And I love this city the same as my siblings. So stop fucking telling me to leave.”

“I think that today is the most that I’ve ever heard you say the word ‘fuck’ consecutively,” Hayley says, because she is a goddamn idiot and if she doesn’t say something stupid than she is going to say something _really_ stupid like, _I fucking love you, too, and I’m so, so glad that you are staying._

Freya rolls her eyes. “You’re making dinner,” she declares. “Don’t go down to Rousseau’s and get Declan to give you takeout.”

“Do you want me to accidentally poison you?”

“No, I want you to cook me an edible meal because my girlfriend just went halfway across the world and the rest of our siblings are just as far away. You’re the one who’s here, so you get to cook for me in lieu of Elijah. Congratulations.”

Freya doesn’t seem to realize what she just said, or if she does, she’s glossing over it as if it means nothing. As if it’s normal. _Our siblings._ Hayley’s whole body is thrumming with space that’s filling in and she can’t stop herself from squeezing Freya tightly for half a second.

“Okay, fine, but in a few hours, remember that you asked for it.”

“I believe in you,” Freya says. She somehow manages to sound sarcastic and sincere all at once.

…

…

Hayley burns the pizza.

Freya, Mary, and Hope all laugh at her from the table as she waves a t-shirt at the smoky oven and grumbles at it for being traitorous.

They eat ice cream for dinner, and Hayley doesn’t feel bad about it at all.

…

…

They have been scouring through Kieran’s old files for the last two years, digging up minuscule lead after lead and sending Rebekah, Elijah, and (sometimes) Klaus on a wild goose chase. Very rarely, Hayley leaves Hope with Freya and joins one of them. Even more rarely, Freya does the same. It hurts more each time that they leave again because they come home to Hope’s open and devastated face asking about her family and if it worked, this time.

The answer is always no.

Hayley goes to Amsterdam with Elijah on a lead during the second autumn. It’s impossibly weird to see him again. They don’t ever really talk anymore. He calls Klaus every single day—usually more than once—and he talks to his sisters and Kol on a regular basis, but Hayley…

She doesn’t know what to say to him anymore and neither does he. The truth is, Hayley’s not sure if she ever knew what to say to him. He was kind to her when it mattered and he is the reason that his siblings pulled her into their insular family but—

He’s not who Hayley thought he was and she’s realizing that that is okay. She tells him this, because she’s sick of this strange avoidance that’s not helping either of them. Elijah sort of looks like he’s been punched, for a flash of a moment and then his mask slips back on. He smiles and nods and says _alright_. Hayley bends forward and kisses him on the forehead and she hears him suck in a breath. “Please, live your life, Elijah,” she begs. “For yourself. This might never change. We can’t leave everything on hold. Okay?”

He nods but she doesn’t know if he’ll actually do it. The Mikaelsons are the definition of co-dependent, and in the last two years, only Rebekah and Kol are managing to scrape up some sort of life among the pair of them. Klaus is clearly unraveling but _trying_ as hard as he can not to. Elijah just sits around and waits to talk to him. Freya barely sleeps. Hayley is sick of watching it all. None of this is good for Hope. It’s not good for any of them.

Hayley goes home, tells Hope _not this time, sorry,_ all over again and shoves Freya into bed when she finally crashes over an ancient tome from Kieran’s collection, sometime around three a.m.

Freya slowly starts to sleep more. For the last two years, she’s been running on coffee and adrenaline and Hayley has been getting more and more worried. She has done this once before. She already had five years of running, alone, searching for answers. But she had to give Hope a _life,_ too. Freya doesn’t have that ringing in the back of her head. For her, a life for Hope means having her entire family there.

It’s devastating when the realization hits Freya that they might not be able to solve this one. That she is going to have to decide if she wants to spend the rest of her (mortal) life desperately clawing to keep all of her siblings together.

Thankfully, she chooses a night when Hope is sleeping over at Henry’s with Lisina to do it because she lets out a feral scream that rattles around inside of Hayley’s skull and _clings._ When Hayley runs into the living room, Freya is down on the floor, a keening wail coming out of her and books and spell components strung about.

“Shit,” Hayley mutters and runs to her.

“I can’t—” Freya gasps.

Hayley manages to get her arms around Freya and holds on tight, as tight as she dares and just starts to hum. It’s stupid, but it used to be the only thing that worked on Hope when she was little. There was a phase there when Hope was about four where she would just start screaming and crying at the slightest provocation and the only thing that Hayley could think to do was hum some fucking old nursery rhyme. She doesn’t even know the words to it except for, _Daisy, Daisy, something something something do? I’m half-crazy all for the love of you. We’ll spend every day together, regardless of the weather? And you’ll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two._ She doesn’t know and to be honest, she doesn’t care. She thinks that maybe, somewhere in there, she has a memory of her adoptive mother singing this, but it could easily have slipped in there some other way. Hayley never bothered dwelling on it. She sung the bits that she knew and hummed the rest and then just hummed, over and over again until Hope went calm and sleepy. It worked every time.

Hayley starts humming it now on instinct. About halfway through the third round, Freya sucks in a shaky breath and asks, “Are you humming ‘Bicycle Built for Two’ to me right now?”

“Um… maybe? Is that the title?”

Freya gives her an incredulous look. She’s not a sobbing mess anymore though, so Hayley is counting this as edging somewhere towards a win. Hayley shrugs and explains her thought process. Freya is quiet for a single beat and then she bursts out laughing, clinging to Hayley through the same shaky gasps as before, only there is a different energy to them now. That awful tension evaporates and Hayley starts laughing, too.

“Jesus,” Freya chokes out, still basically curled up in Hayley’s lap, head tucked into her neck. “That’s the weirdest thing to happen to me in… the last three centuries, at least.”

_“That?”_ Hayley scoffs. “Of all the things?”

“Yep,” Freya grins up at her. “Thanks, I needed that.”

“Freya—” Hayley starts, but she shoves herself (gently) out of Hayley’s arms and starts gathering up her mess, cutting Hayley off.

“I know,” she says. “I just… I’m their big sister. I can’t give up on them.”

“No one is asking you to,” Hayley says. “But you can’t keep on doing this.”

“I know,” Freya says. Her shoulders slump. “I know.”

…

…

Hope goes sullen and quiet and then Klaus suddenly stops calling. 

Hayley is raging. He hangs up every time that she calls, won’t answer a single goddamn letter, and won’t pick up for Rebekah or Elijah, either. Hope won’t tell her what happened, no matter what way Hayley tries to come at it. After a solid four months of radio silence from Klaus, Hayley makes a snap decision and grabs Caroline and the two of them get on a plane to go kick his ass. 

He goes slack-jawed and humble at the sight of Caroline and Hayley is suddenly very glad that she dragged her along at the last minute. 

“You unbelievable asshat!” Caroline hollers, slapping him on the back of the head. 

Klaus won’t fess up, not even to Caroline, not at first. Hayley tries a different tactic, she starts chattering away about the day to day in NOLA, forces Klaus to show them both around Paris—neither of them has ever been, might as well see the sights. Klaus preens at the notion of playing tour guide and offers them both his arms. The three of them parade about the city—the dirty, loud, city—and wind up sitting on the banks of the Seine, watching the Eiffel Tower’s hourly light show. It’s stupid and touristy, but it’s got a kind of magical quality to it all the same. Hope would love it. Hayley says so and Klaus immediately stops trying to flirt with Caroline and goes all sulky. 

So, Hayley pushes Klaus into the river. 

“What the _fuck_ happened?” she demands. “She’s _our_ daughter Klaus. You tell me right now or I swear to god I will make the rest of your immortal life miserable.” 

“Fine!” he screeches. He’s a soggy pathetic mess when he hauls himself back up beside them. Caroline gets up before he can say anything, flouncing over to purchase a crepe because _when in Rome, and all that!_ Hayley and Klaus are both highly aware of how obviously she is trying to give them a moment of privacy, but they say nothing as she leaves. Hayley gives him a minute or two, waits him out, and then he finally says, “She astral projected in to see me.”

Hayley freezes. “What? When? How does she even know how to _do that_?”

“I don’t know,” he laughs and it sounds fond and terrified and Hayley knows exactly how he feels. “Probably, she has been snooping about in Freya’s things. Which, I’d do something about, if I were you.”

“Don’t fucking give me any parenting lectures. You haven’t spoken to her in _four months.”_

“She came at a horrible time,” he says, voice scrapped raw. Hayley’s blood goes cold, imagining the sort of horrors that Hope could have seen her father doing. 

“What did she see?” Hayley demands, deadly calm. Klaus flinches at the tone of her voice, at the memory, maybe both. 

“Her father, the monster.” 

“You fucking—” Hayley trails off, pressing her palms against the cement and gritting her teeth. 

“I know,” he says. “There’s a reason I’ve stayed away. I’m not good for her.”

“Just fucking _leaving_ isn’t what is—”

“SHE SAW ME MURDER AND FEED ON HALF A DOZEN PEOPLE!” Klaus roars. “What about that could I _possibly_ explain to a nine-year-old?” 

“You could have fucking _told me_ and then we could have figured something out. But now, she’s had four months to think about all the worse possible scenarios by herself, while you haven’t said a goddamn thing to her. _Plus,_ you missed her birthday. You won’t even pick up _Elijah’s_ calls, Klaus. What the fuck?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and for once in his goddamn thousand-year life, he sounds like he means it. 

Hayley drops back down to the cement and Klaus, after a beat of hesitation, follows down after her. They stare up at the tower as it starts its blinking show again. Another hour has passed. 

“I didn’t know how to fix it,” he admits. “I didn’t know how to handle her looking at me like I was a monster. Her, of all people.” 

“So, you _tell her that,”_ Hayley says. 

“What?”

“Tell her the truth; you are a monster. Tell her that you have done unbelievably fucked up things, a hundred times over. Tell her that you have hurt more people than you could count in your incredibly long life. Tell her that everyone fucks up but our family tends to do it in extremes. Tell her that you have to try—very hard—every single day, not to make those same mistakes again.”

Klaus is silent, then. “Okay.” 

Not two seconds later, Caroline—obviously eavesdropping—pops over and shoves crepes into both of their hands. “I wanna see the Mona Lisa before we leave,” she demands. 

Hayley and Klaus both crack a smile; Hayley is very, very glad that she brought her along.

…

…

“Mom!” Hope calls out. “Watch this!” Hayley turns around and watches as Hope—under Freya’s watchful eye—holds up her hands and closes her eyes, muttering an incantation under her breath, and then Caroline floats into the air, laughing. 

“Nice job, honey,” Hayley calls, then sends Freya a death glare and promises to stab her in her sleep if Hope ever starts bouncing her around into the air without warning. 

Caroline, after being gently set back down to the grass, flounces over to Hayley while Hope and Freya keep going with their daily lesson. “That is cool, but I hope my girls don’t learn that one. Lizzie would use it to her advantage way too often.” 

“Are they coming down here this summer?”

“Yep,” Caroline is practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect. It’s infectious. Hayley watches Hope go giggly with laughter at something Freya says and smiles, passing Caroline the rest of her sandwich. “I’m a little nervous though,” she admits.

“How come?”

Caroline shrugs and doesn’t elaborate. Hayley means to prod, but Mary starts coughing violently from inside the house, and she jumps up to go help instead. It seems like the chemo is doing more damage than help, as far as Hayley can tell. She doesn’t know enough to offer alternatives, but Mary is looking gaunt and shrinking by the day. 

“Cause I’m dyin’, kiddo.”

“Shut up,” Hayley orders, tugging the covers closer up to her chin. “No, you’re not.”

Mary wheezes. “I am,” she insists. It’s not the first time she’s said this and it’s not the first time it’s left a sinking feeling in Hayley’s gut. The doctors are starting to run out of options and Hayley is starting to panic. 

“Kid, I’ve lived a long, good life. I’m alright if it’s my time.”

“It’s not.” 

“You’ve got people. You’re solid. Those Mikaelsons are out of your life. The pack is doin’ swell, I even really like that Freya one now. You’re gonna be just fine.”

“Mary… shut up,” Hayley begs. 

“Okay,” Mary agrees. “It’s not gonna be today. But kid, you gotta get your head right with this. I can feel it. It’ll be soon.” 

“Caroline could turn you,” Hayley offers, before she even knows what she is saying. It’s a desperate, awful thing and Mary reacts as though Hayley has slapped her. It’s exactly how she felt, when she initially woke up and realized that she was a hybrid. Hayley says so, tries to talk Mary into something that she has never wanted, and isn’t ever gonna budge on. It’s a hard no and then Mary falls asleep. Hayley walks out of the room, frustrated and tired and so sick of trying to keep her shit together when Caroline walks up and flicks her on the forehead. 

“For the record, I never consented to turning anyone. It’s not some small thing.”

“Shit,” Hayley mumbles, feeling eight-thousand times shittier. 

“I would, if she wanted it,” Caroline says. 

“ _Really_ —”

“She doesn’t,” Caroline says, as flat and final as Mary. It’s like a slap in the face and it’s the last straw, Hayley breaks down crying. Caroline wraps herself around Hayley and quickly shuffles her into the closest bedroom—Freya’s—as she walks inside with Hope. She must make some desperate signal to Freya, because she cops on enough to keep Hope occupied while Caroline shoves Hayley onto Freya’s bed and holds her while she cries herself to sleep. 

The next thing she knows, it’s well into the early stages of morning, and Freya is curled into her side, Caroline nowhere to be found. Hayley rolls over and looks at the clock: 4:07 a.m. 

“Go back to sleep,” Freya mumbles. 

“Is Hope—”

“Fine, sound asleep. Shut up.”

Hayley sighs. “Mary’s dying.”

Freya doesn’t open her eyes. “I know.” 

“Caroline will turn her if she would let her.”

“She won’t.”

“Is there anything that you could… I mean, you and Dahlia were immortal for… it was more natural than—”

“She won’t,” Freya repeats. “Also, that was awful. It was only a year of life once every _hundred years_ , Hayley. Even if she would choose that, I don’t know if I could do it. Dahlia was more powerful than me and it took a lot out of her.”

“I just…”

“Love her and don’t want her to die. I know.” Freya opens her eyes and flings an arm over Hayley. They’re not often all that touchy-feely with each other, but they have been becoming more so, recently. Hayley suspects that it’s a combination of Caroline’s influence, maturity, and Freya missing Keelin. 

Hayley doesn’t say anything. There isn’t really anything _to_ say. Mary is dying and it sucks. Hayley lets Freya hug her and goes back to sleep. 

…

…

It happens in the summer.

Hope turns ten. Hayley turns thirty. And then Mary dies.

Hayley’s chest hurts in a way that she didn’t know was possible. It hurts worse than Jackson, somehow. She’s known Mary longer, loved her harder, she supposes. She doesn’t dwell on it because that will only make this hurt worse and she feels enough like shit as it is. She has to pull it together, for Hope.

Every werewolf in New Orleans comes down to the bayou. Nearly a hundred wolves from across the entire country come down to pay their respects as well. It’s astounding, the loyalty that one person can cultivate just by showing up and giving a shit about people. Hayley can see them all looking to her, sizing her up to see whether or not she is worthy of them shifting that loyalty on over to her. Honestly, Hayley doesn’t think that she is. Mary wasn’t ever even the alpha. Mary wasn’t ever their enemy. Mary never fought against her own kind.

Hayley walks towards Mary’s body holding the torch with vampires, witches, and a human at her side, the wolves all tense as she lights the boat aflame.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “For everything.” When she turns to face her pack, their eyes are watery, their faces full of grief, but their bodies all shift towards Hayley, not one of them looks unsure about that.

It blows her away and the second that she gets a moment to herself, she breaks down crying under the weight of it all. Then, she straightens up her spine and goes and hugs Hope and watches the sun set over the water.

…

…

A tiny brunette Josie Saltzman-Forbes comes barreling through Hayley’s kitchen and skids to a stop in front of Hayley, Caroline, and Freya.

“Um, hello,” she says, clearly not expecting them to have been there. She bounces and tries to shift to glance behind them.

“Hello,” Caroline says, voice full of amusement.

“Um… so…” Josie sighs, contemplates her choices, and then admits, “I’m here on a scouting mission. And you’re kind of ruining it, Mom.”

Caroline presses her lips together and Freya knocks her head into Hayley’s shoulder to hide her laughter. Hayley keeps her face very carefully blank and stares Josie head-on. “How am I doing that?”

“You guys aren’t supposed to be in here!”

“Oh, obviously,” Caroline says.

“Mom, we’re stealing Ms. Marshall’s ice cream,” Josie says seriously.

Hayley can’t hide her laughter anymore as Hope and Lizzie’s horrified yells of protest come from the kitchen window. Lizzie’s face floats up in front of it and Hayley really wishes that Freya had never taught her how to do that spell. “Josie, you traitor!” she yells. “If you got caught you _weren’t supposed to talk!_ You were supposed to be a vault of steal! _”_ she admonishes, with all the drama that Hayley would expect a child of Caroline Forbes would possess.

Josie rolls her eyes. “I said that we should just _ask_ for the ice cream, this is your fault.”

“Girls,” Caroline cuts in. “Please don’t teach Hope to steal and lie, that will make Hayley hate me.”

“Don’t put this on me,” Hayley protests as the twins shift their outraged faces towards her. “They can have all the ice cream they want.”

“YAY!!”

“No, they can’t,” Caroline hisses underneath her breath.

“You guys should all visit more often,” Freya says happily. “This is very entertaining for me.”

…

…

Faction meetings don’t ever become less dull, but they do slowly inch their way to something that no longer resembles downright hostility. Vincent, Freya, and Ivy speak for the witches. Marcel and Caroline speak for the vampires. Hayley and Lisina speak for the wolves and Cami remains the sole human representative. The mayor sends her roses every Christmas in thanks for never having to lower himself by coming to the meetings. Cami never once sends him a thank you card in return. She just calls him a prick and says that it’s all going perfectly well, thanks, and Hayley doesn’t understand her at all.

Caroline corners Hayley one afternoon and asks her what her sexuality is out of the blue.

“Um…”

“Because I’ve always considered myself to be straight but… I think that was incorrect on my part,” she says, not waiting for Hayley’s response.

“Um…”

“In retrospect, I absolutely should have realized that I was bisexual, but apparently heteronormativity is alive and well and my daddy issues maybe extended a little further than I realized.”

“I… don’t know what that means,” Hayley says.

“Oh, my father was closeted for a long time and then he came out and then he left us. Also, he tried to kill me and was a vampire… sort of hunter? It’s all… a whole thing. Not important. What _is_ important is that I think, hilariously, I might have a thing for Cami. Have you ever gotten a single queer vibe from her?”

This conversation is giving Hayley whiplash.

“Um… I honestly have no idea. All I know is that she was into Klaus, and once, she and Marcel slept together.”

“So was I,” Caroline hums. “Marcel? Really? Does Rebekah hate her, too?”

“Honestly, I think she did for a while,” Hayley shrugs. “I think Rebekah hates a lot of people, when she first meets them. She tends to come around in the end.”

Caroline says nothing in response to that. She has worked out whatever strange relationship she is going to have with Rebekah now, and it’s fine. Caroline looks out the window, contemplative. “Shared inappropriately placed crushes on Klaus. I can work with that.” When she grins, bends over and smacks a kiss on Hayley’s cheek and hums, “thanks!” Hayley truly has no idea what she could possibly be thanking her for. She bends back over and keeps typing up her paperwork for the latest Faction meeting.

Paperwork. She didn’t think this is how her life as an alpha was going to go. There is a ridiculous part of her that finds comfort in it. Out of all the crazy shit that’s happened since she turned thirteen, some semblance of mundane normalcy still found a way to seep in.

…

…

Hayley walks into Rousseau’s three weeks later and finds Cami and Caroline making out like a bunch of teenagers on top of the bar, hollers, covers her eyes, and yells out “Sorry!” before quickly backing outside. Their laughter echoes and follows her.

“Ow,” Freya says as Hayley slams into her. “Why’d you walk—”

“They’re, um, occupied,” Hayley says, redirecting Freya and quickly walking down the street. “Hypothetically, do you think that your brother is the type to go on a murder spree if his exes ever got together?” 

Freya’s eyes widen and she tries to turn and peek back into Rousseau’s. “Which brother?”

“Take a fucking guess.”

“Um… probably… wait — Cami and _who_?”

“Also blonde. Perky. Made out with your brother that one time. That I know of.”

_“Caroline?”_

“That’s the one.”

Freya bursts out laughing. “I want to be the one to tell Klaus. Oh, please let me. I’ve waited _centuries_ to be able to do some proper big sister torturing like this. I deserve it.”

“It’s all you, babe,” Hayley says. “Now where do you want to eat lunch instead?”

…

…

Hayley and Freya make a deal. They spent two years in a half-limbo situation, searching for answers to rid their family of an ancient magic and putting their lives on hold, and somewhere during the third year, they figure out a balance that works.

Mondays are dedicated to The Search. Unless they find a promising or urgent thread to pick up, they don’t think about it for the rest of the week.

Hayley follows Freya up the steps to Cami’s apartment and slides into the super-secret extra room that Kieran built. Cami and Vincent are already sitting around a table with coffee, laughing at something that Vincent is showing Cami on his phone. Hayley stalls; they’re not usually here. It’s not their family that’s separated. Vincent, in particular, has been rather vocal about _liking_ the new normal of Mikaelsons spread to the corners of the earth and banished from New Orleans. At this point in the conversation, Cami usually smacks him and mumbles something about insensitivity, but agrees with the general points about willingness to help and offer up her uncle’s things, and unwillingness to put her life on hold for beings that have already had a thousand years to do whatever they want.

“Um… hi?” Hayley says as they both look up, mid-laughter, and nod over at them. “What’s up?”

Vincent clicks the phone off, shoves it into his pocket and suddenly goes all business. There’s still warmth on his face, but there’s a hard edge to it that slides towards serious. Cami mimics his tone and Hayley feels Freya tense up behind her.

“Hi,” he says. “So… I found something in one of Eva’s old books last night.”

All of the sound drops out of the room. They’ve all said some variation on these words to each other before; _I found something, maybe._ The way Vincent is holding his spine, there’s no hint of the _maybe_ there and all of them can feel it.

“It’s a long shot,” he warns, but that doesn’t do a single fucking thing to ease the tension in the room. Freya jerks towards him, her limbs aren’t working right, she slams her body into the chair too hard. “It might not be anything,” he adds, but not a single one of them believes he means that. He wouldn’t be here otherwise, and they all know it.

“Just tell them,” Cami says. “They know the drill by now.”

Vincent sighs. “Ivy is on her way. I asked her to look over what I found. To be sure, before—”

Freya is vibrating out of her skin now. Hayley walks over and places her palms down on top of Freya’s shoulders before she leaps up and strangles Vincent for not getting to the point fast enough. Thankfully, Ivy comes barreling into the room a few tense moments later, gives Vincent a tiny nod, and then plops down and steals his coffee.

“Is anyone going to tell me what the hell you’re all so keyed up about?” Freya snaps.

“Freya, take a breath,” Cami says gently as Hayley says, “You’re the one who’s keyed up, _fucking breathe,_ ” at the same time. Freya punches Hayley. She accepts the tea that Cami passes over. Hayley—maturely—sticks her tongue out at Freya as she sits down beside her. Cami pointedly does not give her a cup of tea.

Hayley drums her fingers on the table as Vincent, Ivy, and Cami take turns explaining what they found. Freya’s gone still and calm, now Hayley is the one jumping out of her skin. It all sounds plausible enough to her. Magic doesn’t make much sense. It’s when they say, _two years from now_ that Freya kicks back to life and Hayley goes still.

“What?”

Cami finally gives Hayley her tea. “Planetary alignments, blah, blah, something else magical,” she says. “There’s all these other factors that only happen every hundred years or so.” Cami rolls her eyes but then her whole body goes soft. “The point is, it could work.”

Vincent nods. “Honestly, it’s the clearest solution I’ve seen. Just have to wait for it.”

“For _two years,_ ” Freya stresses.

“Already done that,” Vincent points out. “You can do it again.”

“Let me see the books again,” Freya demands. Hayley catches Cami’s eye across the table and the two of them slip out and leave the witches to it. Freya is going to want to go over everything at least once, if not twice. Hayley doesn’t need to hear it again. She’s not going to understand it any better. The only thing that matters is that there is an end date. Two more years, and it’s over.

Hayley can work with that.

…

…

“Really?” Hope breathes, slow. Her face is pinched. “Two whole years?”

“Really,” Hayley pulls a smile and knocks her shoulder against Hope’s. “They need to wait for some planet thing to be in alignment, and there’s a comet or something. It doesn’t really matter, yeah, it’s a long time. But, two years isn’t _that_ long. August 12th, then they can all come home.”

Hope inhales and then her face splits into a breathtaking smile and Hayley only has half a beat to adjust her stance before Hope flings herself into Hayley’s arms. “REALLY! REALLY?” she screams, cheering.

“Really, really,” Hayley smiles.

“Does Aunt Freya know!? Does Aunt Rebekah!? DOES DAD?!”

“Freya knows, no one else, yet,” Hayley says. Hope slithers out of Hayley’s grasp and then yanks her into the living room, she pushes Hayley down on top of Freya and then flings herself on top of them both, laughing and trying to shove them all into a three-way-hug. Freya’s not as happy as Hope about the news, but she’s slowly growing somewhere close to it.

“We can do two more years,” Hayley whispers to her. “Hell, you were patient for centuries for them, once.” 

Freya rolls her head over towards Hayley, her arms around Hope, and allows herself a small smile. “We can do two more years,” she agrees.

“Can I call Dad and tell him?” Hope asks excitedly.

“Sure babe,” Hayley says and pulls out her phone. She listens as Hope chatters away, words spilling excitedly out of her as Freya watches, biting at her lip.

Two years, piece of cake.


	2. act ii

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184664496@N04/49498846312/in/dateposted/)

* * *

The girl shows up on a Thursday.

Hayley and Hope are having their breakfast down on the edge of the dock, feet dangling over the ledge, trying to stave off the early summer heat and give Keelin and Freya some alone time. They’ve only got 48 more hours until Keelin is back on a plane, off to save the world’s babies again.

Eleven years old looks good on Hope. She’s gained an inch or two of height, which is freaking Hayley out, but there’s a little bounce of confidence to her steps these days, something edging towards a precipice. Hayley still just looks the exact same; frozen in time while her daughter adds new layers each year. Hayley’s trying not to think about it too hard, trying just to enjoy a breakfast sandwich and watch the sun creep above the water when the girl comes sliding—literally—into their world.

She’s dirty and frazzled, that’s the first thing that Hayley notices.

“Woah,” she says, jumping to her feet and putting herself between the girl and Hope. Old habits, and all that. “Are you okay?” the girl’s eyes go wide and panicked and she’s glancing all around, almost as if looking for an exit. It’s… startlingly familiar in a way that Hayley feels down to her bones, old remnants of a time on the run, back when she first turned. It’s like an awful gut punch and she has to swallow through it and focus. “Kid, are you alright?” she asks. Nothing about the girl looks alright. She looks hungry and dirty, and scared.

“I’m… looking for the alpha,” she says, entire body poised to run at a moment’s breath.

“Well,” Hayley laughs. “You found her.” She holds her arms out as the girl looks her up and down dubiously. “I’m Hayley Marshall-Kenner. Well, back to just Hayley Marshall, now,” she holds one hand out, the other keeping Hope behind her. “What’s your name?”

The girl hesitates, glancing around before she says, “Daisy,” and takes Hayley’s hand.

“There are daisies over by that tree,” Hope whispers into her back. Hayley squeezes her arm and Hope clamps her mouth shut and knocks her head into Hayley’s back with a light sigh.

“Pretty name, kid. Nice to meet you,” Hayley pulls all the warmth that she usually stores up for Hope onto her face. Some strange combination of Alpha Mode and Mom Mode. Daisy (or whoever she is) stays sort of wary, but her body language relaxes, a little. “This is my daughter, Hope. You have any breakfast yet?” she nods over towards the remains of their picnic breakfast. Daisy hasn’t taken her eyes off it for long since she walked into the clearing. She manages to shrug in response, though. Hayley shuffles Hope over and the two of them sit back down, Hayley offering up extra food to Daisy. She hesitates again for a beat and then practically dives for it. Hope leans into Hayley as she munches, observing the older girl quietly and kicking her feet back and forth. Daisy’s hair is cropped short and messy. Greasy and full of actual dirt on one bit, couple of twigs. Her clothes are baggy, too big for her and covered in dirt and grass stains. Jeans, black sneakers, a red t-shirt, and a hoodie—nothing else on her. She keeps pushing a hand up and shoving at her hair when it falls into her eyes. Something about the motion strikes Hayley as self-conscious.

“Are you a werewolf?” Hope asks her casually. The girl stiffens and Hope winces. “Cause I am,” she says, quickly. “Well, not yet. But my mom is. And my friend Lisina. And Keelin. And my friend Henry, and—”

“Yeah,” Daisy mumbles. “I am.”

It’s a loaded statement. Hayley can see it in the set of her shoulders, in the way that she shoves at her hair again, the way she won’t look either of them in the eye. Hope can see it, too. She shifts away from Hayley, mumbles something about going to pick some flowers, and shuffles off to give them some privacy. Hayley is ridiculously proud of her kid’s kindness and tact in that moment.

Hayley waits Daisy out. The two of them sit on the edge of the dock and sweat under the rising sun as Hope jumps around and picks flowers and practices some magic—bringing a bunch of dead flowers back to life, healing a tree, other things that Hayley doesn’t catch. Daisy does, though. She eats her way through the rest of the food like she’s ravenous, sneaking glances over at Hayley and back at Hope the whole time. Her eyes widen the second she sees Hope do magic for the first time, but she doesn’t ask right away.

“It’s a long story,” Hayley offers. Unwilling to go into more detail about her daughter until she knows what the hell is going on here, exactly. Daisy only nods and accepts this, so Hayley leaves it.

“So,” Hayley says, once Daisy has finished. She leans back on her palms, stretching her face up to the sun. “What can I help you with?”

Daisy’s shoulders go taunt. “What do you mean?”

“You said that you were looking for the alpha.” Hayley points to herself. “That’s me. What did you need the alpha for?”

“Um… I…” Daisy looks distraught, all of the sudden. She’s twisting with her hoodie, curling in on herself and going red-faced. Shame. Embarrassment. Hayley doesn’t reach out to her, she can tell that it wouldn’t be welcome right now. Instead, she closes her eyes and basks in the sun and starts talking about things that she hates talking about, because she has a hunch.

Daisy goes stock still the moment that Hayley says _turned in the living room, thirteen years old, too much for them._ Her shoulders go up to her ears when she says, _ran away, kicked out, basically the same thing whichever way you shake it._ She senses Hope turn around and tense from some ways behind them. Hayley’s only ever told her scattered bits and pieces of this so far. The bones of it. Not the details. Not _how_ it happened—Hayley, drunk at age thirteen with a boy who was almost three years older than her. The cold, icy chill of the water and the way that he never came up after she shoved at him, half in jest, half in terror. The _pain_ as it happened for the first time; every single bone in her body breaking and coming back together while she _screamed_ and her parents—her _parents,_ adoptive, or not _—_ just stood there and watched on in horror.

Hope keeps saying things since her birthday like _I’m getting too old for that, Mom,_ but right now she abandons any pretense of trying to appear grown-up or as if she weren’t eavesdropping for a moment and drops her flowers. She runs over to them and knocks her spindly little body into Hayley’s, clawing until she’s on her lap and holding her tight. “I’m sorry, Mom,” she whispers. “They were so mean and so dumb and I hate them and I love you so much.”

Hayley chokes out a little laugh and hugs Hope back. “It was a long time ago, babe. I’m okay,” she says this with conviction—to both of them. And finds there is a truth to her words, finally. It still stings, probably always will, but she’s okay now. “But thank you.”

Daisy is quiet for a few moments and Hope—though she loosens her grip—doesn’t remove herself from Hayley’s lap. Finally, Daisy says, “It was already bad enough, when I told them that I was actually a girl.” She keeps her gaze directed at the water, whole body held so tightly, poised to bolt at a moment’s notice. The words settle into the calm bayou morning and Daisy is afraid of them. She’s had them blow up in her face before, clearly. Things start to click in Hayley’s brain; the self-conscious tick of Daisy shoving at her cropped hair, tugging at her baggy clothes, the way there’s more fear spilling out of her than most runaways Hayley’s encountered. Hayley breathes out a sigh, long and slow. This is not her area of expertise, but everything else about this girl—thirteen and a new wolf and abandoned by people who were supposed to be her family? It all hits far too close to spots that Hayley tries very hard not to think about anymore. It’s like someone came along and held up a mirror of her former life to taunt her.

“Do you want to be called Daisy?” Hayley asks. “Or was that a cover in case I ended up being an asshole?”

“Language, Mom,” Hope admonishes, with no real feeling behind it.

Daisy cracks a smile at Hope and then says, “Um… sure. I guess.” She shrugs. “I haven’t really… I’ve been using different ones since I left.”

“I think that daisies are really pretty,” Hope says. There are a few of them in her bouquet. She smiles as she holds it up to the light and pulls another one—beaming, brighter this time—out to Daisy.

“Me too,” Hayley says.

…

…

Daisy stays.

It wasn’t… really ever the plan. Hayley was just going to have her stay for a night or two and then find a family to foster her within the pack. One of Lisina’s oldest friends is a social worker; Hayley was going to go through all the legal channels and whatnot, but.

Daisy sort of just... stays. Hope wakes up and won’t stop smiling at her, won’t stop offering up her clothes and food and showing Daisy all of her art and trying to impress her into being her friend. From what Hayley can see, it’s working like a charm. She is certainly biased, but Hope has an enigmatic quality to her—people like her. She offers Daisy her favorite orange skirt and makes her a friendship bracelet and punches one of the pack kids in the face for making a comment about Daisy that neither of them will suss up to, later. And then their friendship is solidified; easy as that.

Hayley would kill for relationships to be that easy again, sometimes.

A week rolls by, then two, then Hayley looks up from her (endless) Faction paperwork and watches the two of them trying to do cartwheels in the yard and realizes that Daisy has been there for almost a month. Hayley hasn’t looked for any of the pack families to foster her since week one.

“Is Daisy staying?” Hayley asks.

Freya looks up from a spellbook, coffee mug held in one hand and a wry grin slipping its way onto her face. “Are you asking _me?”_ she counters. “I was under the impression that Mary left this shithole to _you.”_

“Don’t call our house a shithole just cause it’s in the bayou,” Hayley orders, automatic. Freya shrugs and rises to refill her cup. She grabs Hayley’s as she passes and refills it too. Hayley watches the girls play and then turns over and looks at Freya. She asked her because… for the last three years, at least, they’ve been in this together. It takes a village and all that but when it comes down to it, Hayley and Freya are the ones who have been doing the most of the parenting. She has sort of become Hayley’s rock.

It scares the shit out of her. Because there is a limit to all of this, an endnote. Freya is going to bust the sky open and kill an old magic and bring her family back together. And then… she’s going to marry Keelin. She is going to finally let herself build a life and a family of her own.

And Hayley wants that for her. She does. She just… also wants Freya to be by her side. It’s selfish. It’s just… Hayley came to New Orleans searching for her family and all she found were the ghosts of them. She built something with the Mikaelsons that’s become tangible and real and she wouldn’t trade it, but. Her partnership with Klaus is different. It’s not easy or comfortable in the way that these last three years have been. It’s _good._ It’s something solid and Hayley is grateful, but.

Elijah is… never going to be her partner. In fact, the last time that they spoke he was very clearly dodging around a way to tell her that he’s been dating a woman for a while. Hayley had laughed and told him to spit it the fuck out and then he finally sighed and gushed about Antoinette in a way that felt… normal for them both. Hayley hung up feeling relieved and satisfied and just a tiny bit sad, for things that might have been, one day, but content.

Rebekah… maybe if she had stayed, early on, things would be a bit different between them, now. Hayley remembers how she felt when Rebekah barreled into her life in that oppressive old plantation home. Relief like she’d only felt once before, when Elijah was kind to her and threw around words like _family_. Hope, for something more to eventually develop, but. Rebekah left and though she always came back, it… never quite felt the same. That possibility Hayley felt in those early weeks fizzled slowly until it was gone. A low, comforting hum replaced it. Something good, but not what she thought it would be. Hayley doesn’t even know if things will change when Freya cures them of The Hallow. Rebekah has avoided staying in New Orleans since before The Hallow, anyway. She might only ever pop in and out again.

Kol… honestly, Hayley doesn’t even really like Kol. 

It might just be Hayley and Klaus. And maybe that will be fine, but Hayley is going to miss this, selfishly. Freya passes the mug into Hayley’s palm and tucks some of the hair out of her face without thinking about it and sits back down to work; oblivious to Hayley’s mild panic. The kitchen is full of sunshine and the girls are giggling outside and Hayley _loves_ this and she’s going to miss it.

It is what it is.

“Do you want her to?” Freya asks, finally breaking the silence. Hayley blinks. “Daisy,” Freya adds. “Do you want her to stay?”

“Do you?”

Freya looks out the window and watches the two of them play. Daisy does a cartwheel and Hope uses her magic to keep Daisy balancing up into a handstand, both of them laughing. Hayley watches Freya smile. “It’s not up to me,” she says, softly. “This is your house, Hayley. Your pack,” she nods towards Daisy. “I’m just crashing.”

“That’s not true,” Hayley says, firm. Sort of hurt. Freya looks over towards her sharply and something passes over her features that Hayley can’t quite discern. Hayley huffs out a frustrated breath. She is sick of this, this Mikaelson stoic dodging around their feelings thing, she is sick of keeping herself closed off in case something blows up in her face again. She’s sick of not just being _honest_ about what she is feeling. She’s not a scared little girl anymore, desperate for family and belonging. She _has_ it now. “I love you,” Hayley tells Freya. Simply, calmly; easy and casual and the fucking truth. In her adult life, Freya is probably the one person that she loves the most. Feels solidly connected to in a way that is easy and mundane and so, so, wonderful. She never in a million years would have expected it, but there it is. So, Hayley says as such. Freya’s eyes snap up. She’s only said those words to Hayley the once, back when Keelin left the first time. Back when Hayley tried to give Freya permission to leave with her. Hayley never said it back, though. Not explicitly. Not like this.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen once you break The Hollow’s curse. I don’t know what you and Keelin are going to decide on for your family, but, you factor into mine, idiot. And we’re here now, together. And if you’re here then it affects you, so stop pretending otherwise and help me make decisions.”

Freya’s biting at her bottom lip, trying not to show how amused and happy she is right now. Hayley rolls her eyes and shoves at her papers and doesn’t look up at Freya again.

“You love me,” she says, teasing.

“Fuck off,” Hayley says. She stands and makes to leave the kitchen and to never, ever to talk about her feelings again with anyone who isn’t Hope. Freya grabs her before she can. Hayley is stronger, faster—she could easily shove herself out of Freya’s grasp and bail, but she doesn’t.

Freya tugs Hayley’s waist towards her and holds on, her face knocking into Hayley’s stomach, holding her tightly in place. “I love you, too,” she says. It settles into the kitchen and solidifies between them. Hayley wraps her arms around Freya’s head and releases a relieved, panicked breath. They stay like that for a moment or two longer and then Freya sort of shoves Hayley back a little and looks up at her, arms still around Hayley’s waist. “I don’t know what Keelin and I are going to choose after this is all over, either,” she admits. “She’s… really sick of putting her life on hold. She gets it, but—”

“I know.”

Freya nods slowly and Hayley eases herself out of the embrace, returning to her seat across from Freya. “I still want to marry her,” Freya says. “I miss her like crazy. I miss all of them, but.” She looks up and meets Hayley dead in the eye. “Once this is all over, weirdly, I think I might miss this, too,” she admits.

“Me too,” Hayley says, relieved to find that it’s not just her. 

“I like Daisy,” Freya says after they’re both quiet for a moment. She’s looking back out the window. “She’s… she’s not family,” Freya says and Hayley’s shoulders tense. “But, maybe she could be.” Freya turns back to Hayley and smiles, a soft, fond thing that Hayley has only ever seen directed towards Hope or Keelin. “Apparently, my family has a thing for stray wolves.”

Hayley laughs, then goes quiet and pensive. “She’s going to need a lot. I… being alone at that age does things to you. Being rejected by your family because of who you are… it leaves scars that don’t disappear easily.”

“Sounds like you’re the right woman for the job, then,” Freya says.

“Maybe…” Hayley shrugs.

“You see yourself in her, don’t you?”

Hayley only nods.

“It’s decided, then,” Freya says. “Call up that social worker. Tell him that we’re keeping her.”

_We._

Hayley smiles.

…

…

Daisy’s first full moon in New Orleans lands on a Saturday. Freya makes her a moonlight ring, similar in design to the one that she gave Keelin, and Daisy goes stock still and holds it in her palm, thrown, before she tackles Freya into a hug that leaves her grunting at the strength but beaming.

Hayley offers to change with her, anyway. She doesn’t want it to stay as a horrible, painful, scary thing that lurks in the back of her head for the rest of her life. It was hard for Hayley for a long time before she learned to embrace it, but now it’s a part of her that she cherishes. She tells Daisy that it’s her choice, but if she wants to run with Hayley, then she can. 

Daisy slips the ring onto her finger, shoves her short hair out of her face, and then nods. Hope wants to watch but Hayley won’t let her. Not this time, not while Daisy is still shaking with fear and anticipation—she doesn’t need an audience for this. Freya kisses Daisy’s head and then tugs Hope back into the house, leaving the two of them to it.

Hayley starts shedding her clothes on instinct and Daisy tenses. _Fuck._ Hayley has been reading up on transgender youth as much as she can, but she doesn’t have any real experience with this. She doesn’t know if she is going to accidentally say something that hurts Daisy instead of healing. She is the definition of winging it, here. She says something about bodies being a vessel, a cage, a shell, a home, a thing that can be manipulated and hurt but also, whatever you want it to be. Yours. No one else’s. Yours to shape as you choose. Yours to define. Not something that defines you. It’s the other way around, no matter what anyone else says. For a second, she thinks that she has royally fucked up, and now Daisy is going to change and it’s going to be traumatic all over again and Hayley can’t take it back, now. But then Daisy releases a shaky, watery breath and nods, looking comforted.

“Can you turn around, though?” she asks.

“You don’t have to take your clothes off,” Hayley assures her. “They just… they’ll be ruined when we change back. They’re just clothes, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want… I want you to be able to see me. We’ll do whatever makes you comfortable, but I think that seeing me turn might help.”

Daisy takes a moment to consider this and Hayley waits as patiently as she can manage. She can feel the slight tug of the moon growing stronger. It’s not hard to fight off for her, but it’s still there, always. Humming underneath her skin. Ring or no ring, Daisy is going to feel it too. It’s going to be harder for her to ignore for a while. They don’t have all the time in the world.

“I don’t want to ruin the skirt,” Daisy finally says. It’s the orange one that Hope gave her. She tugs it off, standing there self-consciously in just a baggy t-shirt and her underwear for a moment and then she steals herself nods over at Hayley.

“Okay,” Hayley says, and peels off her clothes, completely unashamed. Daisy’s eyes widen and her cheeks go a little pink but then she just stares up at Hayley’s face and concentrates on what she is telling her.

“Don’t fight it,” Hayley says as Daisy screams once in pain. “The more that you try to fight it, the more that it hurts and the longer it takes. Embrace the pain. It means you’re alive, that you’re strong. Stronger than the pain. If you trust in that, know it, then you can embrace it.”

Daisy’s eyes are wet and she’s crying hard but she’s listening. Hayley can see the change start to move along more quickly. She’s leaning into the pain and letting it wash over her. Suddenly, there is a small, completely dark gray wolf standing in front of her. Hayley smiles. She walks over and cups the face in her palms. “You did brilliantly,” she says and kisses the pup's nose. “I am so proud of you." She smiles wide and says, "let’s run,” before she stands back, grits her teeth, embraces the pain, and shifts.

They run side by side for nearly the whole night. When they finally shift back, Hayley quickly wraps Daisy up in the blanket that Freya left out on the porch and lifts the sleepy girl up into her arms. She walks into the house and deposits Daisy into bed beside Hope—they’re still waiting on the new bunk beds to be delivered. Hope stirs and Hayley moves over to her side, brushing some hair out of her face.

“Is she okay?” Hope asks, eyes still half-closed.

“She did great.”

“Oh, good,” Hope mumbles. Her arm flings out towards Hayley and she bends down and let’s Hope squeeze her once, tight, tight, before her arm goes slack and she’s fallen back asleep. Hayley laughs quietly and tucks Hope back in, too, then slips out of the room and crashes.

…

…

Freya does a spell to make Daisy’s hair grow faster.

Hayley walks into the kitchen to find the three of them laughing and testing length and color. “Make it super curly!” Hope offers. Freya looks to Daisy for permission and she shrugs and nods. Freya mutters something and curls spill out of Daisy’s head. She shakes her head and laughs, looking up and noticing Hayley.

“Do you like it?” she asks, suddenly shy.

“Do you?” Hayley counters and slips past to get some coffee.

Hope holds a mirror up in front of Daisy’s face. She studies it seriously, tilting her head back and forth. “Um, kind of. What… can you do it normal? Like, just… what it would be if it was just my hair, but long?”

Freya concentrates for a second and then mutters something and Daisy’s hair changes again. The jet-black curls shift back to her natural light brown, slightly wavy hair, but spilling down into shoulder length. Daisy shakes her head again, laughing as it brushes back and forth on her bare skin. “It sort of tickles,” she explains. Hope holds up the mirror for her again. Daisy studies herself and then breaks out into a smile. “I think I like it like this, for now.”

“Me too,” Hope declares. “You look so great!”

Daisy looks over to Hayley and Freya, waiting for their opinions. Freya smiles, “Beautiful,” she declares.

“You look great, kid,” Hayley says. “Who wants pancakes?”

Hope scrunches up her nose. “Are you gonna make them?” she asks. Freya chuckles.

“No,” Hayley says, trying not to seem put upon. “Freya will.”

“Um, excuse me—” Freya starts.

Hayley pulls a pout onto her face and then walks over and crouches down next to Hope. Hope mimics her. “Don’t let us starve,” Hayley begs. Daisy looks between the three of them and then pouts and presses her cheek to Hayley’s other side, the three of them hamming it up.

“I’ll help,” Daisy promises, but she keeps the pout intact.

Freya rolls her eyes and then sighs, relenting as she rises out of her seat and moves over to get the batter. Hayley and the girls all cheer and Freya mumbles something about Hayley being utterly incompetent and lost without her. Hayley agrees, easily and happily. Freya eyes her and gives her that fond look again, then she flings some batter at Hayley’s face.

It’s a great morning.

…

…

“ _Cami_ and _Caroline?”_ Klaus sputters, aghast. “Is this some sort of practical joke?”

Hayley leans over at the screen, momentarily blocking Freya’s face. “Nope,” she says, then moves back to her plate of food. “We sort of thought that it was just a one-time thing, but turns out, they like each other,” she mumbles, mouth half full of her burger.

Freya is vibrating with amusement as she holds her phone up and watches her brother emit a strangled noise and then kick at a wall.

“You’re enjoying this,” he accuses.

“I am,” Freya says, unabashed.

“Once you cure me, I’m going to kill you,” he says.

“I love you too, brother,” Freya says and then hangs up on him. “That was absolutely worth waiting a thousand years for,” she declares.

Hayley rolls her eyes and chews her burger. It’s not as good as Declan’s used to be. Hayley misses him, and not only because of his cooking. It was nice, to have something so uncomplicated and casual while it lasted. One close call with an out of town vampire a couple of months ago and Cami got protective and shuffled her cousin back to Ireland and that was sort of that. Part of Hayley is relieved that she didn’t have to either break it off herself or take the plunge and go all-in with him for real.

“That was cruel,” Keelin counters, sliding back into the booth with a plate full of food. Freya slips her arm across Keelin’s shoulders immediately. They’ve been all over each other the full three days since Keelin has been back. Hayley is anticipating the whole two weeks that Keelin has off to go about the same. Unless they start to fight again. Freya is under the assumption that Keelin’s commitment only has three more months to go after this vacation. That by the time the holidays roll around, she will be back in New Orleans for good. But Hayley saw the paperwork that indicates that Keelin signed up for another two-year commitment. She’s not sure how that revelation is going to land when Keelin tells Freya, but she’s afraid to find out.

Now, Freya only beams and drops a kiss onto Keelin’s cheek, basking in teasing her brother about his love life and having her girlfriend back home. Hayley’s not taking that away from her. She stays quiet and eats, perking up when Marcel and Vincent join them later on. She shoves them both out of the booth and over to the bar and lets Freya and Keelin be gross and in love for as long as possible.

Caroline sends her a text: a photo of her, smack dab in the middle of four girls, dressed up and beaming up at the camera. Hope has a scarf wrapped around her head and sunglasses on, hip cocked out to the side and tongue stuck out at the camera. Lizzie is trying to take up as much of the photo as possible, the brash nine-year-old covered in glitter and spreading her body out as far as it will go. Josie’s tucking herself into Caroline’s side, smiling happily up at the camera with bright purple lipstick smeared across her lips, almost clown-like. Daisy is the most subdued of the four of them. She’s got some glitter on her face and a fancy black top hat perched atop her head, but she’s just sitting there happily and smiling softly up at the camera, hovering behind Caroline, who sits cross-legged on the floor, mid-laugh at Lizzie and covered in sparkly boas.

Hayley laughs and saves the photo, then holds it up to show Marcel. He grins, snatching Hayley’s phone and sending it to himself, then holding up the camera to their faces. He smacks a kiss to Hayley’s cheek and she sticks her tongue out. Marcel sends it back to Caroline and then takes a swig of his beer.

“How’s that going?” he asks.

“What?” Hayley frowns, pocketing her phone and taking the beer that Cami waltzes by and passes over.

Marcel nods towards Hayley’s pocket. “New kid.”

“Um… good, actually,” she says. “Hope’s thrilled. They basically spend all of their time together outside of school. She always wanted a sibling.”

“And you?”

“It surprised me,” Hayley admits. “I never thought I wanted to have one kid, let alone another. But, yeah. I’m kind of thrilled too. We’re still sort of feeling each other out, it’s only been three months, but, so far, so good. Basically, the social worker says that by Christmas we can either officially adopt if it’s still going well, or find another home that fits her better.”

Marcel grins, cocky, and then slings an arm around Hayley’s shoulders, clinking their beers together. “Proud of you, Marshall,” is all he says. “Your parents would be, too,” he adds a beat later.

Hayley goes momentarily still the way she always does at the mention of her birth family, and then loosens her body and drops her head onto Marcel’s shoulder. “Thanks,” she whispers.

…

…

The fight is spectacular, when it finally happens. Keelin says _two more years_ and Freya explodes, magic pouring out of her uncontrollably as Hayley has only ever seen with Hope before. Hayley immediately sprints into the girls’ room, grabs them both underneath each arm like a football and runs to Rousseau’s.

“CAMI!” she hollers, setting the protesting girls down and sprinting upstairs to Cami’s apartment. She’s in the kitchen, hand hovering over a pan of scrambled eggs. “I need you to watch the girls,” she says. “Freya is—”

“Tell me later,” Cami says and starts to crack more eggs. “Send them up.”

Hayley plants a hard, grateful kiss to Cami’s cheek and then runs downstairs and shuffles the girls upstairs. Hope is grumbly and tries to latch onto Hayley so that she can get back to the bayou and see what’s going on, but Daisy quickly grabs her hand and tugs her along into the kitchen. Hayley shoots her a grateful look and then sprints back home.

She plants herself on the porch steps, trying to give off the illusion of privacy but be ready to intervene in case one of them says or does something that they can’t take back, later. She’s trying not to eavesdrop but to _be there_ for them at the same time, it’s not an easy feat. Hayley bites at her thumbnail and jingles her leg and hears retreads of the same old argument from when Keelin first signed up to leave. 

_Can’t put our lives on hold. Not going to sit here and watch you waste away for your siblings. Please, please come with me._

Keelin’s not being entirely fair, there. Freya has been making good on their deal. Mondays, and nothing else. After they found their mighty solution, she spent a solid two weeks hold up in Kieran’s old nook in Cami’s apartment with Vincent and Ivy, going over everything they could possibly prepare early. Since then, there has barely been a mention. She’s just been living her life. Keelin knows that, on some level, but she’s not _here_ to witness the change in the same way that Hayley has been. 

She’s not giving her enough credit. 

Freya screams that fact right back at Keelin. Hayley switches to chewing on her other thumbnail and jitters both legs, now. 

_You just left. Bailed. My family is everything to me. You know that._

Hayley closes her eyes and clasps her palms together to stop chewing on them. She can’t seem to stop her legs, though. She tries to tune their voices out more, jumps up and starts pacing in the yard, putting more distance between them. She can still hear, but she focuses for a moment and tunes their voices down to a low hum, amplifying the noise of the bayou instead. The words turn choppy as the cicadas scream.

_Marriage. Our kids. What then? Going to run to them every time? Hayley._

Shit. At the sound of her name, Hayley's focus jerks out of the rush of the river and the noise of the animals and right back to her living room. Keelin’s voice is cutting and Freya is silent and Hayley doesn’t know what to do. She doesn't know what is going on. Hayley slowly makes her way back to the porch, all pretense of privacy abandoned. She’s actively listening in now. 

“What?” Freya gasps. 

Hayley crouches down and peers through the window, just for a second. They’re standing at opposite ends of the living room. Keelin is breathing heavily and looking half guilty at her words and half furious. Freya looks flabbergasted and utterly panicked. Hayley has never been more confused or anxious about an argument that didn’t—theoretically—involve her. 

“What’s going to happen when we have kids of our own?” Keelin asks. “Are you still going to just drop everything the minute that one of your _immortal_ siblings calls for you?”

“I — what _kids?”_ Freya gasps. “I — I don’t ever want to have children again.”

Keelin rocks back on her heels like she’s been slapped and Freya’s voice is small enough to fit in the palm of Hayley’s hand. 

“Again?”

Freya folds her arms around herself. “I told you that I had a son,” she insists. Keelin shakes her head forcefully and Freya swallows thickly. “I… swear I thought that I had,” she says. Hayley and Keelin both believe her. Keelin steps closer, arms going out but she stops herself. “I don’t… my aunt Dahlia made sure that… anyway, I lost him,” she shrugs. Hayley wants to bust inside and wrap her arms around Freya. She wants to watch Dahlia die all over again. Keelin seems to agree with her on both accounts, she steps closer to Freya, arms going up this time for real but Freya side-steps her embrace. “I don’t ever want to go through that again. I can’t. Mikaelsons… we shouldn’t be parents. We’re damaged goods. Toxic. I wouldn’t impose that on a child.” 

Hayley frowns. Inside Keelin scoffs harshly. “What about Hope?” she snaps. 

“I… that’s different,” Freya says. “She’s always been more Hayley’s than anything else. No matter what the rest of us might pretend.” 

“Hayley,” Keelin mutters. There’s an edge to her tone that surprises Hayley. Freya too, from the looks of things. 

“What?” Freya asks. 

Keelin shakes her head, mouth pressed tightly into a thin, thin line. She’s looking down to the floor, avoiding Freya’s gaze. 

“ _What about her?”_ Freya goads. 

“Nothing,” Keelin says. 

“No, it’s obviously something,” Freya snaps. “For fuck's sake, spit it out.”

“How long are you going to stay here and play house with her?” Keelin bites. Freya goes deathly still at her words and Hayley’s head is spinning. _What the fuck?_

“What?” Freya asks, voice scraped raw. 

“It’s been almost three years of me asking you to come with me,” Keelin says. Now, the anger is almost gone from her voice, she just sounds exhausted and sad. “At a certain point, you wonder why the answer is always ‘no’. I’m… I can’t keep doing this, Freya. I can’t keep waiting around to begin our life together because your family has another crisis. Or because you don’t trust yourself enough to let yourself be loved and happy. I’m — I love you, I do, but. At this point, I’m just not so sure anymore if you love _me.”_

Freya looks like Keelin hauled off and slapped her. When she swallows, Hayley closes her eyes and presses her head against the wall. “Fuck you,” Freya says to Keelin, deadly. 

“Freya—”

“No,” she snaps. “I — you don’t get to throw my family in my face like this. I’ve, I’ve been honest with you about them from the very beginning. You said, over and over, that you could handle it. I — how dare you make me feel guilty for loving Hayley.”

Hayley is, so, so confused. There is very obviously a part of this argument that she has missed, somewhere along the way. She opens her eyes back up and finds that both of them are staring at each other with a mixture of anguish and frustration. 

“What would you think, if our situations were reversed?” Keelin asks, almost soft. 

“They never would be. Because I would never leave someone I loved.”

“I know,” Keelin sighs. “And you didn’t.”

“What are you talk—”

“You never came,” Keelin says quietly. “You stayed with her.” 

“She’s my family,” Freya bites out. “Hope lost _everyone_ else. How… how could you honestly hold that against me?”

“You don’t want children again but you make all of these major life decisions around Hope,” Keelin says. She doesn’t sound angry at all anymore. She’s calm and soft and almost resigned and Hayley wants to walk in there and shake her, to tell her to stay angry and to fight for Freya. 

“She’s my niece,” Freya counters. “She was already born when I woke up. I never had any choice in the matter. Hayley and Hope were already there. My siblings already loved them. I can choose whether or not to have another child.” 

“You already have,” Keelin says. “And you didn’t factor me into it at all. There’s already another child here and you—”

“She’s _Hayley’s,”_ Freya stresses. “They’re both Hayley’s.”

“Are they?” Keelin asks, gentle. It slaps the air between them anyway. Hayley remembers Freya saying _‘we,’_ how Hayley had nettled at her to _be there_ with her, the two of them, how much she never wanted Freya to leave, and thinks: _this is all my fault._

Freya laughs, but there’s a stretched sound to it, like it’s straining against the solid weight of pain dragging downwards. “I think you should stay at Lisina’s, tonight,” she says, sounding not at all like herself. 

Hayley thinks Keelin will argue. That this is going to be a shitty few more hours but that they’ll keep fighting and fighting until they land back on solid ground, together, but that isn’t what happens. Keelin just says, “Okay,” and then grabs her jacket, slowly making her way out of the house. 

Hayley sprints away, feeling nauseous. 

…

…

“I don’t know how to fix it,” Hayley mutters in annoyance. 

Cami slowly stirs her mug of hot chocolate at hums at her. “I don’t know that you _can,”_ she says, being exceedingly unhelpful. 

“But it’s _my fault.”_

“I don’t think that’s true, either,” Cami says, gently. Hayley scoffs. The girls are both sound asleep in Cami’s makeshift guest bedroom (a futon on the floor of her living room). Hayley and Cami are sequestered in Cami’s small kitchen, drinking shitty hot chocolate and feeling sorry for themselves. At least, that’s what Hayley is doing, Cami is turning into a psychologist again. “Hayley, from the sounds of it, this fight has been going on for a long time. It’s something that the two of them need to work out.”

“But—”

“Whatever part you may play in it, ultimately, is something that’s probably masking other issues between the two of them.”

“ _Or,_ ” Hayley says, frustration pouring out of her voice. “I’m the cause of all of this because I’m a selfish bitch who is hogging Freya because I’m lonely and scared of being left behind, and I screwed up her chance at love.” 

_“Or,”_ Cami counters. “That’s complete bullshit and Freya is an adult woman who can and does make her own choices, same as Keelin.”

_“Or—”_

“Stop,” Cami says, cutting Hayley off. “None of this is productive. You eavesdropped on a conversation that you only heard bits of and they were both talking around things they’d already discussed in different manners, anyway. You’re making assumptions based on things that you overheard. It’s understandable, but it’s not helping anything. Just talk to Freya directly.”

“I… can’t do that,” Hayley says, hating the childish lilt to her voice. 

“Hayley—”

“What if I’m right?” she asks. “What if this _is_ all my fault? What if I lose Freya too?”

Cami sips her hot chocolate and grimaces, pushing the offending thing away. Her hand slips across the table and grabs hold of Hayley’s. “Then I’ll still be here. So will Lisina. And Caroline. And Marcel.”

“But—”

“Talk to Freya or Keelin, Hayley. Stop speculating until you know what’s actually going on.” 

Hayley huffs. She knows that Cami is right. Beyond her psychology degree, it’s just… common sense, Hayley just doesn’t want to deal with this. She wants things to be easy, for once in her goddamn life. 

“Can the girls sleep here?” she asks.

“Sure,” Cami says. “The Saturday morning breakfast crowd will love them.”

Hayley dumps her mug of hot chocolate out in the sink and presses a kiss to Cami’s temple. “I’m ridiculously glad to have you in my life,” she says, because suddenly she feels like if she doesn’t just tell people how much she appreciates them, they’ll start up and disappearing on her again. 

Cami smiles and squeezes Hayley’s hand. “It’s mutual.” 

Hayley slips out into the night and runs home. Freya is still up even though it’s edging towards two a.m. now. Hayley slips inside quietly and finds her sitting on the couch, red-faced, watery eyes, wrapped up in three blankets and a nearly empty bottle of whiskey clenched in her fist. 

“Fuck,” Hayley breathes. It stirs a little life back into Freya and she jerks up. When she realizes that it’s Hayley and not Keelin her face falls. Hayley does not take it personally. “Are you okay?” she asks even though Freya is so obviously _not_ that it’s almost a ridiculous way to start the conversation. 

“No,” Freya croaks. “Keelin and I had a fight.”

“Yeah,” Hayley says. Going for radical honesty, adds, “I heard a lot of it, actually.”

Freya’s eyes snap up to her now. They’re still mostly glassy and far away, but they go clear and hard for half a second. “Is that so?” she asks, a dangerous tinge to her tone. 

“I was trying to be…” supportive, is what she was going to say, but Hayley’s not stupid enough to try that right now. She just trails off and shrugs and says nothing, waiting for Freya. 

“I think we might be breaking up,” Freya says. 

“No,” Hayley says quickly. “You two love each other. You’ve fought about this before, you’ll be okay again—”

“Do I look _okay_ to you?” Freya snaps. 

“Freya—”

“She wants to have children,” Freya croaks. “I — _children._ She made some joke a year ago about ‘if we ever had a daughter.’ I don’t even remember the actual thing, now, but, my whole body went so cold and I never said anything. I wanted to tell her that I can’t — that I, that there’s no way — I panicked. I just didn’t say _anything_. Pretended I didn’t hear her. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to tell her and I never did. I let her believe that it was a possibility.”

“Freya, it’ll — Klaus thought that he couldn’t do it, either. I was _terrified_ to have Hope. Maybe you won’t change your mind, and that’s _fine,_ ” Hayley stresses. “But if it’s something that you want, and you’re just scared of it… Freya, you’d be an amazing mother,” she says, with every ounce of feeling that she possesses. “You’re nothing like Esther or Dahlia. Your family doesn’t get to take that away from you if it’s something that you want.” 

Freya doesn’t say anything. She just lifts the bottle and takes another large swig. Hayley wants to take it away from her. 

“It’s not just that,” she finally says, staring off at the wall. “That’s… it’s a big part of it, but — it’s not — she’s signing up for two more years. She wants me to go, too. She said it will be perfect. We have to wait two more years to get rid of The Hollow anyway, why not spend them together, building something?”

“Oh…” Hayley didn’t quite hear that part. She tries to picture it: the next two years alone in this house with Hope and Daisy. It’ll be sad, but they’ll be okay. Hope might not take it well at first, but she wouldn’t ever want to deny Freya happiness any more than Hayley does. Selfishly, Hayley desperately doesn’t want it. She wants Keelin to tell Doctors Without Borders to shove it up their ass and come home. She thinks that Daisy and Keelin would really get along if they spent more time together. She misses Keelin too. She _hates_ this. Hayley sucks in a breath and starts acting like a goddamn grown-up and not a selfish teenager. “Freya, you can do that, if you want to. Keelin is right.”

Freya chokes out that horrible stretched laugh again and swigs more whiskey. Hayley winces. “Unbelievable,” she scoffs. “I can’t believe that you’re both such idiots.” 

“What? Freya—”

“I told you never to tell me to leave again. Didn’t I?” Freya snaps. 

“I… yeah, but I’m not. Freya, we _know_ that we can get them all back. It’s different now. There’s an end date. Both things have an end date. God, you and Elijah both just keep giving everything for your siblings and you never take anything for yourself and this has got to—”

“Don’t,” Freya snaps, so deadly that Hayley snaps her mouth shut mid-sentence. Freya chokes down the remains of the bottle and then just drops it. Hayley stays, very, very still on the other end of the couch as Freya shuffles out of one of the blankets, staring at the wall. “Keelin said something else, too,” she says, voice almost robotic. “I thought that it was ridiculous, but—” that awful laugh again, “maybe it wasn’t. I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore.” 

“Freya—”

“Don’t talk,” she pleads. Hayley sits quietly and watches as Freya turns away from the wall and studies her. Her face is splotchy and she’s swaying, just a little. Off-balance, in more ways than one. Freya sort of crawls forward towards Hayley with a strange, determined look on her face. Hayley holds herself still and quiet. “Did you hear the rest of what she said?” Freya asks Hayley. 

“Um, I don’t—”

“About you?”

“Oh, um… sort of? Not really. I didn’t — I honestly didn’t get what she was saying. Like, I was missing something.” 

“Yeah…” Freya’s still studying her intently. She’s close enough now that Hayley can smell the booze on her breath. Freya uses Hayley’s shoulders to keep herself upright, instead of falling into the blankets. “I thought I was missing some things there, too,” she says. Hayley is deeply confused now. “But then… then I drank _a lot_ of whiskey and thought about some things.”

“Yeah.” Hayley nods to the empty bottle on the floor. “I can see that.” 

“It wasn’t full when I started,” Freya asserts. 

“Okay.”

One of Freya’s hands lifts off from Hayley’s shoulders and moves to tuck some hair behind her ear. It’s a gesture that Freya has done to her probably a dozen times over the years, but there’s a different feel to it now. Freya is drunk and desperate and confused and Hayley has _no idea what the fuck is going on._ Freya’s fingers linger on Hayley’s skin. She runs them down across Hayley’s face, tracing it slowly. “Are we playing house?” she asks.

“I don’t think so,” Hayley says. “We literally have a house.”

“You have a house,” Freya counters. “And a daughter and a — maybe another daughter. I have a room.”

“That’s not true and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“Freya—” Hayley huffs in frustration. “We’ve had this conversation before. More than once.”

“Yeah, sort of,” she agrees. “But not all the way.”

“What does that even mean?”

“What do you want, Hayley?”

“For you and Keelin to be happy.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I want you to either go with her or for her to stay here and for everything to go back to how it was the first year after The Hollow.”

 _“Really?”_ Freya asks, incredulously. “I was miserable that year.” 

“I mean… I was too, I guess. For a lot of it. But the rest… it was nice with the three of us and Hope. When we let it be.”

“Yeah…” Freya starts tracing Hayley’s face all over again. “I suppose you’re right.” 

“What do _you_ want, Freya?” Hayley asks. “Forget about your siblings. Forget about me. Forget about Hope. Maybe, if you need to, for just a second, forget about Keelin. Just… what do you want?” 

Freya stops tracing Hayley’s face. Her fingers remain frozen in place, one on her cheek and one on her nose. The hand that’s on her shoulder squeezes tightly and then Freya closes her eyes and sits there and breathes in and out, slowly. Hayley doesn’t know how long they just sit there like that for, but it feels like hours. 

“I want… to marry Keelin,” Freya finally says, eyes still closed. “I want to not be frightened of the idea of having children. I want to watch Hope grow up. To have all of my siblings alive and in one room and happy again. To have the chance to fall in love with Daisy properly. To not worry about constant threats against my family. And…” she opens her eyes, clear, almost sober, for a beat, but not quite. “I want you.” 

“I — I’m with you until the end,” Hayley says, feeling idiotic, her skin too hot. “I — what do you mean? Like, for things to — be like they are? With you and me? But, just… with Keelin and your siblings here, too?”

Freya nods and then after a beat, she shakes her head no. Her fingers start tracing Hayley’s face again and she feels… very stupid and very nervous and very confused. She just wants this to be easy. She wants to be able to let Keelin borrow one of her skirts, to make Freya a bracelet of twisted string, and to just… have them punch someone for her. She wants her life to be simpler.

“I’m just going to check something,” Freya says. “I’m pretty sure. I was _very_ sure, before tonight, but Keelin — I just need to check. Don’t freak out,” she pleads and then Freya pushes herself an inch more forward and places her lips on Hayley’s. 

It’s… not at all what she was expecting, but once it’s happening she realizes that it should have been. It feels… very strange and kind of wrong but Hayley loves her and trusts her so she stays very still and doesn’t shove Freya away and laugh like she wants to. Freya takes another minute and Hayley isn’t quite kissing her back but she isn’t just sitting there either, because that feels weirder and it would feel cruel, and she wants so, so much to be the opposite of that right now. She kisses Freya back and she mostly feels very weird about it. 

Freya pulls away and opens her eyes. “Okay,” she breathes out. “Okay, good.”

“Good?”

“I was right,” Freya smiles. 

“Um…”

Freya leans her head down onto Hayley’s shoulder. “That was incredibly weird for you too, right?”

“God, yeah,” Hayley breathes in relief.

“Good,” Freya relaxes. Hayley does now, too, but not quite all the way. “Oh good. I thought Keelin was insane, but then… she knows me so well. I was afraid that I’d just missed something about myself. But no,” she tilts her head up and stares Hayley in the eye, serious and sober again for half a second. “I love you,” she says. “More…” she huffs, looking deeply guilty. “I think more than anyone else apart from Keelin. I think actually, maybe the same as her. Just… tilted to the left, or something.”

“What?”

Freya sits back up. It’s a struggle. She is very, very drunk now and on the verge of passing right out. She powers through it, though, and Hayley waits her out. 

“You and Keelin are the most important people that I chose. It’s sexual and romantic with her, but it’s not with you. But, it’s like, matched with feeling, I think. I think that is what she was picking up on and it freaked her out because she hasn’t been here to see, so. It became something else in her head. God, I really need to talk to her.”

“You’re… very drunk,” Hayley says. She doesn’t say, _oh my god, I love you that much, too._ Doesn’t say, _oh thank god, it’s gonna be okay._ Doesn’t say anything else except, “I can go get her for you.”

“No,” Freya says. “No, I need…” she tries to stand up and fails. “Fuck.” 

“I’ll go get her,” Hayley insists. “Be right back.”

“Wait—”

Hayley doesn't wait. It might be beyond stupid but she just _runs;_ pure panic and adrenaline. It’s almost four in the morning but Hayley sprints to Lisina’s and goes straight for her guest bedroom and finds Keelin, still awake and just a little bit drunk, too. She does not look at all happy to see Hayley. “I need you to come home,” Hayley tells her. Keelin snorts and tries to brush her off and Hayley has always been a very staunch advocate for consent but she grabs hold of Keelin and gets her into her arms and runs without her permission, now. She feels like absolute shit about it, but she does it. 

“Fuck you!” Keelin screams as Hayley sets her down in the living room. 

“I’m sorry.”

“Keelin!” Freya yells from the couch. 

“I cannot believe that you—”

“Freya loves _you,_ dummy!” Hayley yells. “Please just… please just talk to each other.”

“We already tried that,” Keelin says. She’s not anywhere close to as drunk as Freya is, but she’s nowhere near sober, either. 

“Okay…” Hayley shoves some hair out of her face. “Okay. The girls are at Cami’s. I’m gonna go crash at Marcel’s. Can you just… please both stay here? Get some sleep, sober up, talk in the morning. You don’t… one of you can have my bed. Or… one of the bunk beds, I don’t care just _please—”_

“I love you,” Freya says, looking up at Keelin. “I kissed Hayley five minutes ago, just to check. You were very wrong and I was very right on that front. Or… well, no. I guess actually, we were both a little bit right. I’ll explain it better when I’m sober, I promise.” 

Keelin looks… confused and angry and relieved. 

“Will you please stay?” Hayley asks her. 

“Fine,” she sighs. “I’m sleeping in one of the bunks and Freya is sleeping in her room until she explains what the fuck all of that means, though.” 

“Perfectly reasonable!” Hayley says, far too cheerfully. She feels like Caroline. “I’m leaving now,” she adds, at Keelin and Freya’s odd looks. And does just that. 

…

…

Hayley and the girls don’t go back to the house until after dinner the next day. They wake up and help with Saturday breakfast at Rousseau’s, Hope tries to carry as many items on a tray as Daisy and drops a bunch of glasses but gets sympathy tips from some of the old regulars. Daisy eats her weight in breakfast burritos and keeps everyone’s coffee mugs full while Hope busses tables. They’re both giddy and exhausted by the time that Hayley drags herself up from Marcel’s couch, sometime after one, and goes to find them for lunch. 

Hope starts asking questions about Freya and Keelin that Hayley only dodges with Cami and Daisy’s help. She distracts them all with the prospect of going to a movie. Hope and Daisy argue over choices for three minutes while Hayley buys sinful amounts of popcorn. Eventually, they come to a consensus and Hayley plants herself between them with the popcorn on her lap. Halfway through the film, she nods off for a few minutes and wakes to a scream from one of the characters. She jerks to a start and both Hope and Daisy groan about not spilling the popcorn. 

“Sorry,” she says and quickly steadies it. 

“Are you okay, Hayley?” Daisy whispers. 

“Yeah. Just tired, kiddo.”

Daisy’s face is still pinched into a frown. “Are Freya and Keelin okay?”

“I think they will be, yeah,” Hayley whispers back. 

“Are you sure?” Hope asks.

Hayley turns to her. “Not one-hundred percent, no. But I’m pretty sure.” She tries never to lie to Hope, if she can help it. Hope frowns at her words, hating any bit of discord between her family, but she finally nods and goes back to watching the movie. 

When it’s over, both of them start talking about going back to the house to see what’s going on, but Hayley hasn’t heard from either Freya or Keelin yet, and she’s not interrupting this time around. 

“Want to go see Marcel?” she offers instead.

“YEAH!” Hope cheers. Daisy shrugs, still slightly wary of the vampires, but she’s smiling at the prospect. She’s grown attached to Marcel and Caroline, at the very least. 

Hayley tries not to keep checking her phone every few minutes and to just enjoy an afternoon with the girls. Marcel and Caroline decide to play some trivia game that has everyone—Hayley included—getting competitive and forgetting about the black hole that’s eating up their house right now. By the fourth round, Hayley’s having a blast, and her phone finally dings with a new message. 

**_Keelin:_ ** _We’re still talking. We’re gonna make dinner, there’ll be enough for you all, if you want. Maybe come back around 7?_

Hayley takes it as a spectacular sign that Keelin is the one who texted her this, and not a horrible, terrible sign of doom. 

“Good call,” Caroline notes when Hayley voices this. “I still can’t believe that Freya kissed you,” she adds in a whisper. 

“Shut up,” Hayley orders. “Do not make this a thing or I swear to god—”

“Relax, I’m a mature adult. I’m only saying…” she tilts her head, considering. “I can sort of see it, actually. In another universe. If Keelin didn’t exist, I’d think you two would be sort of perfect.”

“That’s dumb.”

“Or, brilliant.”

“Nope.” 

“I’m just saying—”

“Keelin exists,” Hayley says. “I happen to love her, too.”

“I know,” Caroline says, fondly. “I’m very glad that we live in this version of the world. I’m only saying, I can see where in another one, things might go differently.”

“Like I snap your neck and we never become friends and you stay in Mystic Falls?” Hayley teases.

“No. Not that one,” Caroline loops their arms together, grinning. “I can’t imagine that one at all.” 

Hayley rolls her eyes but leans into Caroline’s embrace. “MOM!” Hope hollers from across the room. “Can I have a brownie?” 

“Split one with Daisy. Freya and Keelin are making us dinner.”

“Oh, yay!” Hope whips around and tries to finagle the bigger side of the brownie for herself for all of two seconds before she changes her mind and tries to get Daisy to take it. Hayley smiles into Caroline’s arm and shakes her head. 

“Yours are radical sharers, mine are very much the opposite of that,” Caroline mumbles. 

Hayley snorts. “That’s not true. Josie shared half of her drink with Hope last time.”

“Then Lizzie snatched it away.”

“Well… they can’t be perfect all of the time. We’d get bored.”

Caroline smacks her on the top of the head. 

…

…

Dinner is a strange affair. Freya is very obviously hungover and Keelin—undoubtedly through magical means—is not. Keelin looks just as frustrated with Freya punishing herself in this way as Hayley feels, but she only rolls her eyes when Hayley raises her eyebrows in question. Daisy goes quiet and tries to fold herself into her chair and stay out of everyone’s way and Hope bluntly asks, “Are you two still in love?” looking far younger and frightened than she’s allowed herself to appear for months.

“Yes,” Keelin says, scratching the back of Hope’s neck. Hope quickly shoots a look over to Freya, Hayley and Daisy mimicking her.

“Yes,” Freya assures them. She sips at her water and tries not to look miserable at the way that the light hits her eyes.

“Are you still going back?” Hope asks. Hayley sucks in a breath and glances between Freya and Keelin quickly. Freya looks down at her plate.

Keelin releases a soft sigh and nods. “Yeah, I am. My contract goes to the end of December.”

“But after that?” Hope presses.

“Hope—” Hayley chastises. Hope slumps back down in her seat. Daisy is agitated and futzing with the end of her t-shirt—she’s on the edges of all of this tension and she doesn’t know how to handle it. Hayley wants to scream.

“No, it’s okay,” Keelin says. “I…” she looks back over to Freya. “I don’t know, yet.”

_Huh._

“Can we all watch a movie after dinner?” Hope asks Hayley.

“We already went to the movies today,” Hayley reminds her.

“No, one here.”

“I—”

“Keelin and Freya didn’t get to come,” Daisy pipes up. Everyone at the table turns and looks at her in surprise. Daisy looks like she wants to melt into the floor from the attention.

“She’s right!” Hope quickly says, shifting it back to her. Hayley reaches over and squeezes Daisy’s knee. “Mom, she’s right!”

Hayley looks at Freya and Keelin, eyebrows raised in question.

“I’d love to,” Keelin says, smiling over at Hope. Freya looks like she wants nothing more than to go back to bed, but she plasters on a real smile and nods along anyway.

The five of them all cram together on the couch, bowls of ice cream in their laps. After a millisecond, Hayley slips down onto the floor and gives the four of them the couch, still unsure of exactly how things are going and whether or not her presence is welcome. Freya huffs a little in annoyance and Keelin looks surprised, but the girls barely notice the change. Hope is snuggled into Keelin’s side and sneaking bites of her ice cream when she thinks that Keelin isn’t looking. Keelin is graciously pretending that she is oblivious to it all. Daisy is trying very hard to not let any part of her body touch Hope or Freya and to keep all of her ice cream in the bowl and not on the couch. After ten solid minutes of this, Freya shifts and pokes Daisy with one toe, over and over again until she manages to pull a smile out of her. Daisy finally relaxes back into the couch and partly into Freya’s side. Hayley sits cross-legged on the floor until she feels feet poking at her, too, nearly a third of the way through the movie. When she turns around, Keelin is giving her a soft smile, apologetic. Hayley returns it and then turns back to the film.

They’re probably going to talk about it once the girls go to bed, but for now, it’s simple. It’s not sharing skirts, or friendship bracelets, or punching someone in the face simple, but, it is poking people with your foot, sharing a flavor of ice cream, and indulging your children kind of simple.

Hayley jumps up to clear out the dirty ice cream bowls and when she slips back in, she catches Freya and Keelin holding hands above the girls’ heads.

Hayley smiles and goes to sit back down.

…

…

The morning that Keelin leaves again, she finds Hayley and corners her in the bathroom.

“Jesus,” Hayley starts. Keelin closes the door behind her gently as Hayley goes back to brushing her teeth.

“I owe you an apology,” she says.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Hayley mumbles, mouth full of toothpaste.

“No,” Keelin stresses. “It is. I… had some unfair thoughts about you. They grew because I was lonely. I missed Freya, I was angry at Freya and—a little bit at you and the whole family, if I’m being honest—but it was misplaced. Freya and I have had a lot of conversations over the last week that we’ve needed to have for a while. The point is… I’m sorry.”

Hayley spits, swishes her mouth with water, and turns to face Keelin properly. “Me too.”

“Daisy is a great kid,” Keelin says, shifting the subject slightly.

“I agree,” Hayley smiles.

“Freya is really good with her.”

“Keelin—”

“I want children someday, Hayley. I think that Freya does too.”

“Maybe,” Hayley hums. “But she might not.”

“I know. But neither of us are getting any younger. I’m still not happy about how much she puts her life on hold for her siblings, but, we’re working on it.”

“I’m glad. You two are really good together, Keelin.”

Her face goes soft. “Yeah, so are you two.”

“Keelin—”

“I’m gonna miss you, Marshall,” Keelin says, cutting whatever Hayley was about to say off. “See you in a few months, yeah?”

Hayley steps forward and wraps her arms around Keelin. “Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

Hope bangs on the door. “MOM! I NEED TO PEE, GET OUT!”

Keelin laughs into Hayley’s shoulder.


	3. act iii

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184664496@N04/49498846337/in/dateposted/)

* * *

Hayley sips her beer and watches Caroline and Cami whisper and laugh across the booth. Marcel slinks down next to her and grins, clinking their glasses. “How’re ya?” he asks.

“Is everyone but me in a relationship now?” Hayley asks. She had thought—as everyone had—that the whole Caroline and Cami making out thing was just going to be a fling. But it’s been months and they’ve slipped almost easily into something real and solid. Caroline is still… Caroline, but Cami’s practicality and aura of calm fits really well with the high energy that Caroline still exudes. Keelin and Freya are back on something like solid ground, for the most part. They’ve been prioritizing talking every day, even if Keelin’s work runs late. Vincent and Ivy surprised exactly no one and Hayley is delighted to see him so happy and relaxed. Marcel and Rebekah are still always half in an argument and halfway towards fucking at every opportunity they get, but it’s still _there._

Hell, Lisina has gone on four dates with the same guy and keeps talking about how nice and great everything is—even Henry likes him.

Hayley nurses her beer and tries not to grumble at her friends’ happiness.

“Call Declan back from Ireland,” Marcel shrugs. “I’m sure Cami won’t mind.”

He’s obviously talking out of his ass and Hayley shoves him out of the booth and onto the floor. Marcel grins and leaps up, grabbing Hayley’s hand and tugging her out of the booth and then out of Rousseau’s. They walk down the sidewalk, Marcel’s arm slung casually over Hayley’s shoulders and she sucks in a deep breath of the chilly November air.

“I’m not… lonely, exactly,” Hayley says, a few minutes later. “It’s just… I sort of realized that everyone has paired up besides me.”

“Not everyone has to pair up,” Marcel says. “The media, society, everyone is really good at going on and on about that but the truth is… a lot of people don’t. It’s not something to do just because you feel like you should, or like you’re missing out because your friends are.”

“I _know_ that, idiot.”

“I’m only saying,” he shrugs. Unoffended. They walk down by the river, the breeze biting at their skin a bit, now. “How’re Hope and Daisy?” he asks. “Haven’t seen ‘em in a week or so.”

“Good,” Hayley says. “They got in their first big fight this week.”

“Uh oh.”

Hayley rolls her eyes. “It was so stupid but it blew up. I think it was a long time coming. Daisy’s been walking on eggshells, trying to make herself seem perfect. Desirable. She didn’t want to give us any reason to kick her out. But I mean, she’s thirteen—moody comes with the territory. I’m honestly surprised at her self-restraint for lasting this long.”

“What happened?”

“Hope kept bugging her about going to something at school,” Hayley shrugs, still fuzzy on the details. “Daisy had told her she didn’t want to like, a hundred times, but Hope wouldn’t let up. I guess it’s been a little hard for Daisy, recently. She hasn’t been telling me, but a couple of the girls have been being assholes. She’s been pretending to be sick and skipping every gym class. I’m ready to punch a pack of thirteen-year-olds,” Hayley mutters.

“I wouldn’t advise that,” Marcel says. “But, I’ll provide an alibi if you need one.”

Hayley rolls her eyes. She’d never hurt a kid and Marcel knows that. The parents, on the other hand…

“Nah, it’s… I talked to the principal and some of the teachers yesterday. We worked out a few things and Daisy promised not to keep hiding it when shit gets bad. I think it’ll be okay, now. I think she just needed to blow up, honestly. Let it out. Hope was being a little irritating, Daisy snapped at her and then Hope yelled back and they screamed at each other for like five minutes before Freya and I came back inside and yanked them apart. We all talked for a really long time. Keelin’s gonna do some research about hormone blockers and all that stuff. I think maybe it will help. Plus, Lisina knows a therapist from the Quarter who specializes in supernatural children’s issues. Apparently, that’s a thing now. I think I’m gonna have both of them talk to her separately. Hope has… gone through some shit too,” Hayley kicks at the dirt. “I probably should have thought to get her someone to talk to years ago.”

“Hey now, Marshall,” Marcel warns. “Don’t be doing that. You’re a great mom. Hope is amazing. Daisy too.”

Hayley shrugs. “Thanks.”

They move to sit down, feet dangling over the edge of the cement and the river rushing beneath them. Marcel taps out a beat on his knees and sits there with her in companionable silence for a few minutes, the two of them lost in thought.

“Rebekah wants kids,” he says suddenly.

“Everyone knows that,” Hayley responds, somewhat unhelpfully.

Marcel shakes his head. “Yeah, but… it’s always gonna be a thing. You know?” he asks. “I love her. I love this city. That’s… enough for me. I always wanted this and she didn’t. That fact is there, in the back of every argument we have.”

“Marcel—”

“I’m just venting,” he says. “Caroline said…” he sighs and trails off, shaking his head.

“Said what?”

“Did you know Elena Gilbert? Caroline’s friend?”

“I think I met her once. I remember her, anyway, from when I was in Mystic Falls. I worked with Katherine for a while, so.” Hayley leaves that sentence there, not wanting to dwell on her complicated feelings surrounding Katherine Pierce right now.

“Right, well… I mean I guess she’s cured of vampirism, or whatever. Like. She and Rebekah and this whole, weird frenemy thing too, apparently. So, she knows her, but. I guess — I guess it worked and she’s human again and Caroline told me that… it _might_ work to cure someone else. If they drank some of Elena’s blood. I guess.”

“Oh,” Hayley breathes. “Really?”

Marcel shrugs. “It doesn’t… she’s got part of The Hollow in her, so she couldn’t… I mean, she can’t fight it if she’s not a vampire. But—”

“But, once we get it out…”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.”

Hayley knocks her shoulder against Marcel’s and he lets out a shaky laugh. “Yeah. It’s a big deal. But, it might… I mean, I dunno. Ignore me.”

“It’s a big deal, Marcel. It would change your relationship somewhat. It’s okay for you to be… whatever, about it.”

“I don’t really think that I want kids,” he admits. “I love ‘em,” he stresses, quickly. “But I don’t know if I would want to be a _dad._ We’re… fighting again, in case that wasn’t clear enough before.”

Hayley knocks her shoulder into his again. “It’ll work out,” she says. “I dunno how, but it will. Eventually.”

“When did you become such an optimist?”

“Because, every time something absolutely world ending has fucked up my life, I’ve managed to survive it. So have you. So has Rebekah.”

“True,” he laughs. He looks out at the water. “It’s freezing out here,” he exclaims, though she knows it’s barely bothering him. “Let’s go.” Hayley climbs up and follows him down the street, bouncing a bit against the wind.

…

…

“MOM!” Hope hollers, “Daisy won’t let me in our room!”

Freya listens as Hayley sighs, long-suffering, and she glances up from her laptop. “You know, if we moved back into the compound, they could have their own bedrooms,” she says, for the millionth goddamn time. Hayley grits her teeth. She _knows_ that. She says nothing in response, because for the last few months, all of her arguments seem to ring false. The house in the bayou needs a lot of work. The walls are thin. It’s needed a paint job for a solid year, at least. Ants keep finding their way into every goddamn crevice possible. The porch is threatening to split under the weight of anyone who doesn’t take great care with their steps. The girls’ bedroom is becoming smaller and smaller the more familiar and comfortable they get with each other. The sleepover phase has long since left the building and they’re acting like actual sisters, who are on the verge of being teenagers who desperately need their own space.

Hayley is getting sick of it. But — it feels like defeat, somehow. Mary left this house to her. Jackson grew up here. Her parents lived close by. The bayou feels like home.

Except that it’s making her family miserable. Herself included.

Freya hasn’t looked away. She raises her eyebrows at Hayley, waiting her out. Hayley very deliberately turns away from Freya and yells down the hallway at the girls. “Daisy! Let her in, it’s her room too.”

“I’M BUSY!” she screams back.

“Hope, give her some privacy,” Hayley orders. “Come out here with us for a bit.”

“BUT, MOM—”

“Now,” Hayley calls, no room for argument. Hope slumps in defeat and stomps down the hall, brushing past Hayley and flopping onto the couch beside Freya. She knocks herself into Freya’s side and starts asking about magic lessons. Hayley walks down the hall and knocks lightly on the door. “Dais?” she calls out softly. “Are you okay? Or do you just want some time to yourself?”

Daisy cracks the door open an inch. “She’s driving me nuts,” she groans, guiltily. “I just want—”

“Say no more,” Hayley says, bending down and hauling Daisy into a quick hug. She wraps her skinny little body around Hayley’s without a second’s hesitation, which is new. Until their meeting with the social worker three weeks ago, Daisy was still holding herself apart from them. Worried, that it would eventually shutter to an end that left her alone. But, the adoption is almost a guarantee, at this point. The only hold up is the fact that Hayley herself is a transient runaway, officially. And, technically, dead and unemployed.

That part is less official, and everyone is quickly glossing over it. Being a Faction leader isn’t something that can be put down on official paperwork, but there is some finagling that the mayor is doing to re-classify it into something else with a title. Hayley is leaving it to him, Cami, and the social worker.

“What does the other house look like?” Daisy asks. Freya has been trying new tactics as of late; namely, turning the girls against Hayley.

It’s working.

Hayley huffs out a sigh. “It’s huge and very old and not mine.”

“But… it’s Freya’s?”

“Yeah,” Hayley acquiesces. “The deed is in her name.”

“Sooooo…”

“Dais, go and enjoy your free time while you’ve got it,” Hayley orders and turns her around and whacks her bottom lightly, pushing her back into the bedroom. Daisy laughs and sticks her tongue out at Hayley when she closes the door.

Hope is still trying to pester Freya into magic lessons when Hayley walks back into the living room. Hayley, pointedly, does not rescue her and walks into the kitchen instead.

…

…

They move back into the compound for Christmas.

Hayley relents after staying up late and wrapping presents with Freya. They’ve been having snippets of this conversation for _years,_ but Hayley’s got no arguments left. The small bayou cottage doesn’t fit them well anymore. They’ve been on top of each other for a year and it’s leading to more and more arguments between the girls.

Hayley lies down onto the floor, surrounded by wrapping paper and tape and huffs out a breath. “Fine,” she mumbles.

Freya stills. “For real?”

Hayley shrugs, shifting crinkly paper up around her shoulders. Freya’s body suddenly slams down on top of Hayley’s and she starts smacking her face with wet kisses and saying, “Thank you, thank you,” over and over again as Hayley grumbles in protest until Freya releases her and lies down beside her instead. “I love you,” she says. “Best Christmas present you’ve ever given me.”

“It’s gonna take forever to move,” Hayley tries to protest, but Freya is already pulling out her phone and calling Marcel. Caroline has gone home to be with the twins and Ric for the holiday and this year, Cami went with her. Hayley can’t wait to see how that turns out.

Marcel arrives before Hayley can even get up and start listing all the ways that this is still a stupid idea. Freya shoves her all the way up and starts ordering both of them around, packing at full speed and trying not to wake the girls in the process. Hayley spends half the night running back and forth between the bayou and the compound, boxes and furniture in her hands, Marcel, grinning at her side. By the time that six a.m. rolls around, they’ve taken every scrap besides the bunk beds and the blankets the girls are sleeping in. Freya is over at the compound, making sure that all of the magical defenses are reinforced and telling Keelin not to go to the bayou when her plane gets in. Hayley gently lifts Daisy up into her arms, blanket and all, while Marcel does the same with Hope and they run to the compound and tuck them back into their new beds.

And that’s that.

Hayley goes back to the bayou alone. She stands there in the middle of the empty living room and just… breathes it in for a moment. This was the first home that was actually _hers,_ in a way. Hayley walks over towards the door and rests her forehead against the wood, closing her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispers to the empty space.

Then she runs back home to her family.

The girls are still asleep when Keelin gets in around eight. Marcel has gone up to one of the guest rooms to take a power nap and Hayley would have done the same but she can’t get rid of her restless energy. She holes up in the expansive kitchen and attempts to make Christmas cookies instead.

It does not go well, but the frosting tastes great—it’s sort of hard to mess up sugar. Hayley hears it the second that Hope wakes up and she is in her bedroom in a flash.

“Merry Christmas, kiddo,” she whispers, crawling into the bed.

Hope blinks and looks around, then grins and curls into Hayley’s side. “Are we back at Dad’s?” she dares to whisper.

“Technically, it belongs to Freya. Both legally and—since she is the oldest—via seniority, but, yes.”

Hope wraps Hayley up into a tight hug. “My present for you was under my pillow.” Hayley digs around and sure enough, Marcel grabbed it. Hayley unravels a painting of the house in the bayou with five figures on the porch: Freya and Keelin on the top steps, arms around each other, beaming and Hayley sitting in the center bottom step, Hope and Daisy on either side, arms all linked together.

Hayley’s eyes well up with tears. “I love it, babe.”

Hope curls her way onto Hayley’s lap, precious, since she keeps insisting that she is _way too old for that Mom, god!_ She tucks her head into Hayley’s neck as they both study the picture. “I liked it, when it was just you and me, sometimes,” she admits. “But I’m glad we have everyone else, now.”

Hayley drops a kiss to her temple. “Me too, sweetie,” she whispers. “Me too.” Hayley listens intently for a moment then says, “Daisy’s awake.”

“PRESENTS!” Hope cheers and leaps out of the bed, dragging Hayley out of the room with her. The two of them jump onto Daisy’s bed and she laughs once Hope quickly sputters out an explanation for the room and the house. Together, the three of them run downstairs to find the huge, well decorated, Christmas tree that Marcel found. Hope and Daisy scream happily when they see Keelin and slam into her, nearly bowling her over.

Freya, unable to contain her happiness, slinks over and pulls Hayley into a tight hug. “She’s staying,” she whispers in awe.

“What?”

“She opted out of two more years. I guess it wasn’t quite as much of a done deal as we thought.”

Hayley pulls back and looks at Freya’s face—full to bursting with emotion—and smiles. “Merry Christmas, Freya,” she whispers.

Marcel comes stumbling down the stairs and grins at everyone. Hope leaps into his arms and plants a kiss to his face. “Give Aunt Bekah the biggest hug from me you can,” she demands.

“I second that,” Freya calls over.

“Two huge hugs,” Marcel nods. “Got it.”

“Three,” Hayley adds.

“Will do,” Marcel nods. “See you in a bit,” he grins and then runs out.

The girls immediately start to dig into the presents. Keelin passes Hayley a steaming mug of black coffee and wraps her up in a one-armed hug. “Merry Christmas.”

“Glad you’re back,” Hayley says. They sit on the couch, opening things that are shoved into their hands by the girls and cheering along with them when they open their own. Everyone picks at breakfast in between, music playing softly in the background and the fireplace roaring in the corner. Hayley doesn’t regret moving back here. She’s going to miss the bayou and everything it represented for her, but… this is the house where she made a family, it feels right to be back here, now. Especially when half an hour later, Freya’s laptop is opened on the coffee table in front of the couch and four small windows pop up, one after the other and the Mikaelson siblings all take in their surroundings.

“MERRY CHRISTMAS!” Hope and Daisy holler.

Hayley can see that Rebekah’s eyes are watery as she leans closer to Marcel and the screen at the same time. Kol and Davina laugh and wave—easily the least affected by the forced separation, but still happy to see everyone. Elijah tugs a brunette woman onto the couch with him after a moment, and she waves shyly in hello, makes quick introductions, and then slips out to give them all some privacy. Only Klaus is entirely alone for the duration of the video call. They all talk over each other and interject with different threads and shift the conversation multiple times for the next hour and a half. After everyone else has hung up, Hope takes the computer into the den and chats with Klaus for another hour on her own.

Hayley falls asleep on the couch sometime after lunch. The fire, and Daisy’s body warming her as she watches a marathon of Christmas films and eats her weight in the chocolate that Keelin bought. When she wakes up again, she finds that she is crammed between the four of them on the couch, mugs of hot chocolate, her terrible sugar cookies, and boxes of pizza surrounding them as they watch _It’s a Wonderful Life._

It’s one of the best Christmases that Hayley can remember.

…

…

In the final year before they rid their family of The Hollow’s curse forever, Hayley:

(a) officially adopts Daisy Marshall as her daughter;

(b) watches Freya and Keelin get engaged and helps them plan their wedding for August 14th, two days after the (hopeful) return of the Mikaelsons;

(c) attends Vincent and Ivy’s wedding and nearly kills Daisy on the spot for sneaking champagne for herself and Hope to try after she finds them puking in the bathroom;

(d) helps a new family that relocates to New Orleans and joins the pack move into their old house in the bayou, still proving her utter uselessness with a hammer;

(e) runs every month with Daisy (and sometimes Keelin) on full moon nights;

(f) calls Klaus with far more regularity than ever, as the deadline approaches and his restlessness reaches new levels of worry;

(g) goes out dancing with Caroline, on dates with a few men, and tries to allow herself to be vulnerable enough to start letting other people in;

(h) laughs a hell of a lot more than she cries;

(i) watches Daisy turn fifteen, Hope turn thirteen, and then turns thirty-four herself, but still looks the same as she did at twenty-one.

It’s one of the longest years of her life. The endpoint looms and drags on and her family grows restless to a level that Hayley has never seen before. Hope grows snappish, a symptom of her teenage hormones and her worry that finally having her father and aunt and uncles back isn’t going to feel as seamless as she once hoped it would. Daisy regresses, worried about new family members and how the dynamics are going to change and shift. Both of them become almost impossible during the month of July.

Hayley is a little worried too, if she’s being honest. If for whatever reason this _doesn’t_ work, she doesn’t know what it will do to Hope, Freya, and Klaus. The rest of them, she thinks will be crushed, but will survive. But, those three have hinged _everything_ on this plan, Hayley doesn’t want to witness what that outcome will do to them.

She corners Freya in the kitchen on August 4th. “If this doesn’t work,” she starts and Freya sucks in a thick breath and grips her mug too tightly. “You have to go through with the wedding,” Hayley demands. “You can’t go full Mikaelson on me.”

Freya barks out a bitter laugh and grits her teeth. Finally, she turns around and meets Hayley’s eye. “I’ll do my best, but I’m not making any promises.”

“I mean, I’m sort of asking you to,” Hayley says. “I don’t… I think we all know that if this doesn’t work, then Klaus is going to…” Freya swallows and looks down into her tea. “It’s going to be bad,” Hayley finally says. “I need you to keep your shit together, for Hope.” She doesn’t add, _for me, too_ because that would make her an asshole and she already feels like enough of one making this plea in the first place. Freya isn’t Hope’s mother. She _has_ kept her shit together where Hope is concerned as much as she can. Hayley’s just… she’s terrified of what happens in eight days.

Freya grits her teeth again and when she looks up at Hayley, she looks furious. “Don’t patronize me,” she snaps.

“I’m really not trying to,” Hayley tells her, sincere.

Freya releases a slow breath. “It’s going to work,” she says. “Vincent and I have… we’re prepared for everything. We’ve practiced the timing of _everything._ It will work.”

“I believe you,” Hayley says, telling the truth. “But you can’t always control this shit and on the _small_ chance this implodes in our faces, I need you to still be okay.”

“Will you?” Freya counters.

Hayley shrugs. “Honestly, no clue.”

It’s that admission that finally has Freya’s shoulders relaxing. Her whole body softens and then she steps forward and wraps herself around Hayley, clinging to her. “If it doesn’t work,” Freya whispers, sounding like even entertaining the possibility is gutting to her. “Then only one of us is allowed to lose our shit at a time. We take turns.”

Hayley laughs into Freya’s shoulder and then nods. “Deal.”

…

…

The bells ring out twelve times as Hayley stands in the middle of a cemetery with Daisy, Hope, and Keelin at her side.

Daisy is silent, chewing at her thumbnail and tugging at the edge of her tank top nervously. Hope is petulant. Vincent, Freya, and Ivy aren’t letting her help with the ritual. Hayley didn’t want her to, but she was surprised when Freya agreed with her. Historically, Freya hasn’t been shy in vocalizing her thoughts about Hayley trying to protect Hope from magic. But they both agreed that if it does go wrong, then Hope would blame herself. They compromised after she threw an absolute temper tantrum and locked herself in her bedroom so that even Daisy couldn’t get her to come out for a day and a half—she can help by allowing Freya to channel some of her magic. Nothing else.

Freya, Vincent, Ivy, and Davina crouch on their knees in a small circle, herbs and spell books and other things Hayley doesn’t pay attention to surrounding them. There are four empty points around them, waiting to be filled. Freya has gone over _every_ single detail with her siblings a hundred times over the last week—they all know what they have to do.

Cami, Caroline, and Marcel are all off to the other side, there in support, but hanging back slightly.

The bells start to ring out. _One. Two. Three._ _Four._

Hope steps forward and walks over to Freya, holding out her hand and looking so, so small. Beside her, Daisy—a gangly, awkwardly coltish thing since her growth spurt last month—shifts and leans further into Hayley. She is almost as tall as Freya now. Hayley loops her arm around her waist and doesn’t grumble about having to lean up to place a kiss on her cheek. Keelin reaches over and rubs at her back without looking, eyes trained on Freya and Hope. Vincent and Ivy are muttering things underneath their breath, totally focused. Davina and Freya both take hold of Hope’s hands and begin to mutter as well.

_Five. Six. Seven._

The air around them shifts, an energy to it that sends goosebumps peppering Hayley’s skin. The baby hairs on the back of her neck lift and she shivers involuntarily. Hayley watches Freya give Hope’s hand a tight squeeze and then she nods and Hope—reluctantly—steps back and quickly folds herself into Hayley’s arms, clutching at both Hayley and Daisy.

 _Eight._ Kol blurs into sight at a point behind his wife.

 _Nine._ Elijah follows, appearing suddenly behind Freya.

 _Ten._ Rebekah slips into the circle to stand behind Ivy, a breathless smile on her face once she catches sight of them all.

 _Eleven._ Klaus appears behind Vincent, his eyes never once looking up to meet Hope’s.

Freya, Vincent, Davina, and Ivy grasp hands all begin muttering in unison, now. Above them, a comet soars across the sky, blinding and beautiful and Hayley hears Daisy suck in a breath at the sight.

 _Twelve._ The Mikaelsons all begin to scream out in agony.

Angry blue energy explodes up out of the four of them, shooting straight up into the sky at the precise moment that the comet is above the square. It connects at a point and blinds everyone, lighting up the cemetery in a way that has Hayley clutching at her daughters and preparing to run. The sound is deafening. Hope cries out and clings to Hayley and Daisy tries to mash her face into Hayley’s neck, shaking with fear. Caroline and Marcel are both beside them in a blink, standing between the ritual and Hayley’s daughters.

And then, it’s over.

Freya, Vincent, Davina, and Ivy all slump and release each other, panting and looking on the verge of passing out. Hayley tenses and she sees Keelin grit her teeth and look ready to pounce. Kol, Rebekah, Klaus, and Elijah stop screaming but nearly fall over. Kol doubles over and spits. Elijah sucks in air, ragged and balls his hands into fists until he can compose himself. Klaus and Rebekah just stand there and shake, gasping for air and staring at each other.

The comet disappears from sight and Freya laughs, looking up at her brother. “It worked,” she gasps and Elijah jumps forward to catch her, the two of them clinging to each other tightly.

Everything moves very quickly, after that. Kol sprints to his wife, dusting her off and fretting over her while she rolls her eyes and tells him to go hug his niece. Rebekah beats him to it—sprinting over and wrapping herself around Hayley and Hope so tightly, Hope grunts out in protest after a moment. But she is grinning up at her aunt as she does it. She’s laughing when Kol runs over and lifts her without preamble and spins her around. Hayley stands there and rubs at Daisy’s back while Rebekah steps forward and cups Daisy’s face in her hands, looking up at her with so much love and affection, it nearly bowls Hayley over, with how much she has missed her.

“It is _so_ wonderful to finally meet you in person,” Rebekah says and Daisy releases a shaky, happy laugh and nods. Elijah and Keelin both drag Freya over and Hayley steps to them and wraps Elijah up in a hug before he can get weird about it.

Vincent and Ivy accept the gratitude—mostly from Elijah and Rebekah—and then begin to gather their things up and slip out. Cami and Caroline are both grinning and standing to the side, wrapped up in each other. Klaus keeps shooting them looks that Hayley can’t quite discern. He still hasn’t approached Hope. Hayley might kill him.

“Rousseau’s?” Cami asks, cutting through the joy and laughter. “Or do you all just want to go home and sleep?”

“Your bar,” Klaus says, grinning slyly over at her. “Sounds perfect, Camille.” 

“For a little while,” Hayley says. “The girls need to go to sleep soon.”

Both of them begin to protest but one look from Hayley cuts it short. Klaus finally allows himself to look over at Hope. The second that he does, his whole demeanor shifts. Everyone makes quick work of heading out of the cemetery, leaving Hayley, Hope, and Klaus standing alone. Hayley smacks a kiss to Daisy’s cheek as she passes by and Freya and Keelin tug her along with them. Hope stands directly in front of Hayley, her head pressing back against Hayley’s chest, arms folded in front of her, staring up at her father. 

“Hi, Dad,” she whispers, in awe of seeing him in person again for the first time in almost six years.

“Hello,” he says, breathless. “I’ve missed you.”

Hope grins and runs at him with a leap. Hayley watches them cling to each other and sighs softly once Klaus looks over at her. She gives him a small smile and allows herself to have the thought: _we did it._

…

…

The adjustment period that everyone was worried about does turn out to be a bit of a hindrance as the weeks go by. 

Everyone is on their best behavior at first, giddy with their celebration and Freya and Keelin’s wedding for the first immediate days. Hope protests that thirteen is _far_ too old to be a flower girl, but relents once she sees the wistful look on Freya’s face. Daisy is delighted to be a bridesmaid, and she goes red and shy once Rebekah realizes that Daisy will let herself be doted on. Rebekah goes overboard doing their hair up in complicated stunning braids that remind Hayley of pictures that she’s seen of Viking women in history books. Daisy looks stunning and so grown up, suddenly, standing up there with Rebekah, Klaus, and eventually, Elijah. 

Hayley was shocked when Freya asked her to be Maid of Honor over Rebekah. She was _terrified_ that Rebekah would never speak to her ever again, but Freya had assured her that she’d already talked it over at _length_ with her sister and that she was perfectly alright with the decision. Hayley doesn’t believe her for a second. Not until Rebekah corners her and grips her so tightly, Hayley thinks she might be trying to squeeze her to death and says, “Just stop making it a thing. I know that the two of you have — it’s been a long six years, Hayley, I don’t want animosity or bad blood to fester. I love you both. You love me both. I’m thrilled that I get to _be here_ _at all._ ”

“Okay,” Hayley agrees. “Okay.” She walks up the aisle hand in hand with Rebekah, anyway, and tugs her closer when she gets the opportunity. Freya and Rebekah both wear matching smiles at the sight, so Hayley feels fucking vindicated. 

Elijah walks Freya down the aisle, the two of them, eldest of the family; matriarch and patriarch for years since Esther and Mikael abdicated in the worst possible ways. Hayley stands there with the rest of the Mikaelsons and watches them walk towards her, regal and brimming with happiness and can’t help the smile that pulls onto her face, knowing that they’re _hers._ Theirs, forever again. 

Vincent walks Keelin down the aisle and Hayley doesn’t think she’s ever seen her look more beautiful or happier. He slips a quick kiss to her cheek and then slides over to stand on Keelin’s side with Hope, Cami, Caroline, and Lisina. 

Kol stands between the two brides, officiating the ceremony and Hayley has never seen Freya look happier to have everyone that she loves in one place. 

They kiss and everyone erupts. Hope whispers out a spell that has white rose petals spilling out of the sky and onto them and Freya’s eyes are watery and she can’t stop holding onto Keelin or stop smiling. 

They dance in the bayou and Hayley laughs. She thought that Freya would honestly never step foot in there again unless someone was in mortal danger, but when she offered it as the spot for the reception, Hayley was shocked for days. 

“It’s beautiful on summer nights, and it’s where we really started to form a new version of our family,” Freya says, smiling between Keelin and Hayley, who’s jaw is embarrassingly wide. 

“Is that okay with you?” Keelin asks Hayley. 

She swallows the embarrassing emotion down and merely nods. 

Now, Daisy and Hope are twirling and shaking and trying to get Kol to do a handstand for them. Keelin is in the middle of a clump, Lisina, Caroline, Cami, and Ivy singing along and bopping to the music with far more rhythm than anyone else on the dance floor. Hayley sits with Klaus and watches as Elijah tugs Freya onto the dance floor. Marcel and Rebekah joining them. 

“How are you feeling?” she asks. They’ve only had a few minutes to really talk since he’s been back because the wedding craziness took over. 

“Strange,” he hums, eyes focused on Hope as she dances with her sister and his brother. 

“Good strange, or bad strange?”

Klaus snorts. “Eloquent as ever, little wolf.” 

Hayley punches him, and he cracks a smile. “Hope loves Daisy,” she tells him fiercely, after a beat. “So do I.”

“I can see that.”

“What I mean is—”

“Hope has spoken about her nonstop for the last two years,” Klaus says, cutting her off. “She’s not my daughter,” he says. “She’s yours. But… I can easily see how much Hope loves her and I will treat her accordingly.”

“Klaus—”

“My siblings have always been the best of me,” he says, genuinely. “I would be lost without them,” he takes his eyes off of the girls and turns back to Hayley. “I’m very glad that she has that, Hayley. That you gave her that. I swear to you, I will do my best with them both. That’s all I can promise.”

“That’s all I need you to promise,” Hayley says, letting out a relieved breath. 

“In that case,” Klaus holds out his hand for her to take. “May I?”

Hayley rolls her eyes, but takes his hand and lets him spin her onto the dance floor as the music changes. She holds onto him and dances with her family surrounding her, in the place where her parents lived, in the place where she found a family, and closes her eyes, soaking the moment in. 

…

…

Rebekah is adamant about wanting the cure. Klaus bristles at the thought of it at first, but then must have a moment of sympathy and compassion for the sibling that he has undoubtedly put through more atrocities than any other, and swears that he will do whatever he can to help. 

Hayley really doesn’t remember or know much of Elena Gilbert, but Caroline and Rebekah both have a lot of complicated feelings about her and both vehemently agree that Klaus should stay far, far away from her. Caroline glares at him when he has the gall to suggest otherwise, takes Rebekah’s hand, and the two of them run to Mystic Falls, leaving Klaus bristling on the couch like a grumpy teenager. 

They have a night on the town the day before they leave. One last hurrah for Rebekah as a vampire. 

(Freya and Keelin are in Greece, enjoying four days alone for their honeymoon—which took a _lot_ of convincing on both Keelin, Hayley, and Elijah’s part before Freya agreed to leave so soon after they were all reunited). 

Rebekah races Kol across the entire state of New Orleans. She challenges Marcel and every one of his men who dares try and best her in a contest of strength and agility—and demolishes them all. She carries Hope and Daisy in her arms and runs around the city, the three of them laughing and gleeful and relaxed in a way that Hayley hasn’t seen them in ages. 

Her brothers are dancing, some more awkwardly than others, in the middle of a club and Hayley twirls over to Rebekah. “Gonna gorge yourself?” she asks nodding over to where Kol is—for once in his goddamn life—subtly drinking from a woman’s forearm. 

Rebekah shakes her head. “That, I hope never to do again.” Hayley nods in understanding and Rebekah pulls her closer, the two of them swaying in an embrace that doesn’t fit with the thumping upbeat music at all. Neither of them seems to care. “What about you?” she asks.

“Hum?”

“The cure,” Rebekah clarifies. “You never wanted this either.”

“I—” Hayley has thought about it since she learned it was possible. Being a hybrid isn’t something that she ever wanted. It took a _long_ time for her to come to terms with her existence this way. “Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe, yeah, someday. I think… I can protect them better this way,” she says. “I’m faster, I can change at will,” Hayley shrugs. “Freya could make me a ring like Keelin and Daisy, but. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m being paranoid,” Hayley laughs. 

“You have been a Mikaelson too long,” Rebekah says, somehow both fond and mournful. Hayley rolls her eyes and laughs, caught off guard when Rebekah spins her around and suddenly dips her without warning—completely confident and graceful. Once she’s pulled Hayley back into her arms, she’s goes quiet for a moment, finding a beat that somehow makes sense with this music even though it absolutely should not. She is good at this, and Hayley tells her so. “I’ve had a thousand years of practice,” Rebekah smirks. “I’ll have it after this,” she adds. “The cure. It will be inside of me, too.”

“Oh, right.”

“So… the offer will be standing, if you ever should change your mind.”

“Okay,” Hayley says, and leans her head down onto Rebekah’s shoulder, letting her lead them through the dance. 

When Rebekah and Caroline come home, Rebekah looks… basically the same, but there is a lightness to her steps that is apparent. A glow that emanates out of her that is impossible to ignore. 

She also has magic for the first time in a thousand years, and no idea how to use it. Freya and Hope immediately begin teaching her and Rebekah nettles at the way that it doesn't quite come naturally to her. 

Kol, surprises everyone and walks into the compound, says hello, and walks over to his sister simply saying, “May I?” and then drinks from her arm. Klaus and Elijah both jump towards him in surprise and maybe even anger but Rebekah only smiles. He has never hated his existence in the way that Rebekah, Elijah, or Finn did, but he always preferred being a witch. Hayley finds that in a way, she’s as unsurprised by the turn of events as Rebekah. Freya, looks positively _delighted_ to have two siblings to practice magic with and Kol grins at his siblings, mouth still red with his sister’s blood, grin, as cocky as ever. “See you around,” he calls and leaves—nearly—as quickly as he came, only pausing to have a conversation with Hope and Daisy before heading back to his wife. 

Elijah spends a month in New Orleans and then surprises everyone by saying that he will be returning to Paris in a week. Klaus looks gutted, but Hayley has never been prouder of him for choosing himself. 

“I can come back now, whenever I wish,” he says, clapping a hand onto Klaus’s shoulder. “You can come to me. We’re free, Niklaus. We should live like it. I’ve enjoyed my time with Antoinette in Paris. I don’t know that I’ll remain there forever, I rather doubt it, actually. But, for now… I’d like to stay.” 

Klaus looks ready to rage, to dagger him and keep him in a coffin in his basement where he has to be at Klaus’s beck and call, but, he _has_ changed over the years so he only shoves Elijah’s arm off and gives him a dismissal with: “Be happy, brother.” 

“I’ll be back for Thanksgiving,” Elijah promises. “And Christmas.” 

Klaus jerks his head into a tight nod and watches him hesitate a moment after Freya and Rebekah sweep him up into hugs before he steps forward and allows himself to hug Elijah, too. “Be happy, brother,” he whispers again. 

“You too,” Elijah pleads. 

…

…

It takes a while for everyone to adjust to being back together. Breakfast the first couple of weeks is a strange affair. Hayley, Freya, Keelin, and the girls have formed a routine over the last few years and when they try to sidestep extra bodies in the kitchen they keep stalling. Hayley doesn’t make enough coffee. Freya makes _way_ too many pancakes. Hope and Daisy start chattering away and bickering and going quiet and awkward once Rebekah, Klaus, and Elijah slip into the room. 

Hayley and Freya move between each other seamlessly, passing food and stealing coffee mugs and wiping mouths and tugging at hair and Klaus, Rebekah, and Elijah sit there and look like interlopers. Rebekah’s elbow juts out at the wrong moment and catches Keelin, halfway through handing Daisy the peanut butter she knows the girl will want to put on her banana. Elijah steps in Hope’s way four times as she flits around the kitchen, expertly dodging out of Hayley, Freya, and Daisy's way as she grabs all of the ingredients for her fruit smoothie. Klaus stands there and observes the easy affection and the way that the five of them take up each other’s space with ease and his mouth twists and stays that way for a week. 

The girls have the hardest time adjusting. 

Hope only ever spent a few scant months with her father and aunts and uncles six years ago. She doesn’t remember the early years with them and Daisy only knows them through video calls that don’t often involve her and stories from Hayley, Freya, and Hope. Klaus and his siblings know that Hope is a teenager now, but they’re all still used to the baby who would slip easily into their arms, the seven-year-old who was quiet and kind and shy. Hope is still kind, she can be shy—though not as much as Daisy—but, she’s not very quiet anymore. She’s learned to take up space, to speak her mind, to voice her opinions. And, she has a lot of them. 

Klaus and Elijah’s eyebrows go up when Hope starts going on a rant about gender-neutral bathrooms in the school that one of her witch friends attends, halfway through breakfast. Daisy is cutting her pancake into perfect bites and scrolling through her phone and only half listening and nodding at appropriate places that indicates Hope has already given this rant to her, and Hope is gearing up for something spectacular. She slams her fork down onto the table in a flourish and sends maple syrup flying at Elijah’s face. 

“Whoops, sorry,” she says, only looking a little sheepish. “But isn’t that _awful,_ Mom?” she stresses. “Henry and Adam and Fiona are all going to protest with us.”

“That’s good, babe,” Hayley says, passing Elijah a cloth. 

Klaus looks between Hope and Daisy and Hayley like he doesn’t know what to do, where to interject, how to have a conversation with Hope, now that she’s alive and in front of him. 

Once Elijah heads back to Paris, it takes Rebekah and Klaus a few more weeks to get into a proper groove in the compound. They slowly learn the dance of breakfast and either jump to be the one to hand Daisy peanut butter, or Hope an ingredient for her smoothie, or they stay very carefully out of the way at the table. 

Hope both avoids and follows Klaus around in the early months of autumn. The two of them take time to relearn each other, mostly, choosing to paint together in awkward silence in the afternoons that becomes less awkward as the weeks spill on. Daisy quickly bonds with Rebekah after a bit of shyness that Rebekah chooses to staunchly ignore until the girl starts coming to her nearly every day with questions about her outfit or homework problems. 

Daisy mostly avoids spending time alone with Klaus, which doesn’t surprise anyone but Hope. She’s cordial and the two of them eventually develop a rhythm that mostly lends to avoiding each other or talking through Hope, but is polite and better than Hayley honestly expected of Klaus. She hopes that eventually it changes but doesn’t press it and is grateful when Klaus doesn’t try to push Daisy, either.

Hope goes back and forth between being _thrilled_ to have Klaus and the rest of her family back to being confused by it. She barely spends any time with Hayley during the month of September, which Hayley tries very hard not to take personally. By the time that the month of October rolls around, Klaus is indulging Hope’s every whim and Hayley is forced to be the bad guy in a way that nettles her. It’s Freya who apparently comes to her aide, cursing out her brother one afternoon and telling him not to undermine thirteen years worth of Hayley’s parenting. 

Klaus and Freya don’t talk for a week, but eventually, Klaus grits his teeth and sucks it up and tells Hope ‘no’ once in a while. 

…

…

Klaus tries to flirt with Cami and Caroline in equal measure. 

Hayley smacks him on the back of the head and tells him that they are happy and he doesn’t get to ruin that and Klaus goes sullen and petulant. Hayley doesn’t know what happens—neither Cami nor Caroline ever tells her—but the three of them disappear together for four days and when they come back they’re suddenly fine. Hayley guesses that they either all fucked or tried to kill each other or both, but Klaus limits his flirting to very casual and good-natured and Cami and Caroline are still annoyingly in love. The three of them become friends in a way that Hayley doesn’t always understand—and never quiet managed with exes in her life all that well—but it’s a strange solid thing that forms between them. 

It’s not until years later, when Rebekah laughs as Hayley makes some remark about the three of them and says, “Love, it’s the same thing as you and Freya and Keelin, is it not?” and sends Hayley’s head spinning. 

“No,” she counters. “It’s not the same at all! I’ve never slept with either of them, for starters.”

Rebekah’s eyebrows go up and Hayley feels her face get hot. 

“I _haven’t,_ ” she insists. 

“But you have kissed my sister,” Rebekah teases, cheekily. 

“God,” Hayley mutters, “of course she told you.” 

Rebekah’s smirk doesn’t leave her face for the rest of the night. 

…

…

Rebekah and Marcel continue their tradition of constantly fighting and then making up with spectacular—according to both of them—sex after the fact. Rebekah taking the cure is the newest hitch to their relationship. Marcel doesn’t want it. Rebekah respects that, but she _does_ want children and to grow old and Marcel doesn’t know if he can watch that and remain behind. Hayley slaps him—hard and asks him if he loves her.

“Of course I do,” he shakes his head. “I’ve loved her for nearly three hundred years.” 

“Do you want to build a family with her?”

“I — don’t know,” he says, honest. “Part of me does… part of me can’t imagine it.” 

“She’s going to do it with or without you,” Hayley says, because it’s true. Hayley doesn’t know if she would have, a few years prior, but Rebekah as a human again has a new lease on life that she is unwilling to waste. Not for anyone—Klaus or Marcel. 

“I know,” he says. 

Freya and Rebekah disappear one afternoon and when they come home, Hayley watches Freya run upstairs to talk to Keelin and turns over to Rebekah in question. 

“We had a very long conversation about our parents,” is all that Rebekah says. 

The next day, Freya and Keelin ask Vincent to help them have a child and Hayley is both flabbergasted and beaming at how much sense it all makes. The real surprise comes when Rebekah asks the same of him, a day later. 

“WHAT?” Klaus hollers. 

“He’s a good man. He’s saved our family many times. Freya loves him and… there isn’t another man in my life who is capable of helping me with this. It’s this or a donor, which was my Plan B. 

Marcel bristles at the news but nods. The two of them still haven’t… they’re not talking as much as they used to and Hayley is staying out of it as much as she can. They love each other and she can’t really picture the two of them drifting apart for good, especially not since Rebekah has decided to move back to New Orleans permanently. She suspects their relationship is never going to look like Freya and Keelin’s, or Kol and Davina’s, but she has hopes that they will figure out something that works for them. 

…

…

Elijah and Antoinette come to New Orleans for Christmas. 

The house is full. Hayley wakes up to Hope, crawling into her bed at the crack of dawn. “I thought that teenagers were supposed to sleep in,” she mumbles grumpily. Hope burrows her way underneath the sheets and into Hayley’s arms and laughs. 

“Not all of them.”

“Ugh.”

“Mom,” Hope whispers. “It’s Christmas.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“It’s Christmas and _everyone’s_ home.” 

Hayley cracks one eye open and looks down at her daughter. “Yeah,” she grins, “they are.” 

“I wanted to have a little bit of Christmas that was just you and me, though,” Hope says, tucking her head into Hayley’s chest. Hayley does _not_ cry, but she closes her eyes and kisses the top of Hope’s head a bunch. 

They stay like that for a few minutes and then before Hayley knows it, they’re both back asleep. The next thing she knows, Daisy is crawling into the bed too and the sun is pouring through the window. “Mom,” she says, tugging an immediate smile onto Hayley’s lips—the moniker only slips out when she isn’t thinking about it, nine times out of ten, she’s still Hayley. “Hope, get up, everyone is already downstairs.”

Hayley grabs hold of her hand and yanks her into the bed instead, Daisy squealing in protest until she relents and snuggles in for a minute. 

“GIRLS! HAYLEY!” Freya screams up the stairs. “GET A MOVE ON!” 

“NOW, PREFERABLY,” Klaus hollers. 

“God, they are annoyingly alike,” Hayley mutters. Hope and Daisy haul her up and the three of them run downstairs. 

Freya, Keelin, Rebekah, and Davina are all sitting on the couch, already dressed. Hayley tugs at her hoodie and sweats and flops down onto the floor beside Marcel. He grins at her and raises his eyebrows. “Merry Christmas, Marshall,” he sing-songs. 

Elijah and Antoinette are standing in an embrace, slightly off to the side and observing the room and having a conversation with Kol. 

Hope and Daisy slide onto the floor and start digging around underneath the Christmas tree with Klaus. They’re less enthused than they were when they were younger, but something about having everyone here for the first time has made them forget for a moment, that they’re supposed to be trying to appear grown-up. Klaus looks young for once too. He’s grinning and passing over presents and watching both girls open them with glee and Hayley leans back against the couch and smiles. 

Once they’ve moved on from presents and everyone has gotten dressed, they all sit around the huge table for a feast. There’s no other way to describe it. Apparently, Freya, Elijah, and Klaus spent half the morning cooking. Hayley sits down between Daisy and Freya and stuffs her face and laughs and laughs and can’t remember a time that felt this…. full. 

That is, until Rebekah stands up and clicks on her glass and announces that she is pregnant. 

“So am I,” Freya says, laughing. 

The whole table erupts. 

Hayley reaches over and tugs Freya into a hug. Beside her, Daisy is cheering loudly, finally feeling like this is her family and she deserves to celebrate with them. Across the table, Hope is standing up and doing a ‘happy dance’ with Kol. Klaus is staring between his sisters with shock and happiness and when Hayley catches his face across the table, the weight of all of the years spans between them, and they both smile.


	4. epilogue

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184664496@N04/49498846327/in/dateposted/)

* * *

Hayley gets the call sometime around one in the morning. 

Hope is panicked and breathless and Hayley has to tell her to calm down four times before she can get her to clearly say, _triggered the curse_ and then she’s sprinting into the night. She knows that Daisy is there with Hope this weekend and that is the only thing that’s preventing Hayley from going into a full-on panic as she runs. Hope isn’t alone. 

She’s not thirteen and alone and scared. 

She’s twenty, and she has her big sister with her, and Hayley is on her way. Still, Hayley sprints as fast as she can. 

It doesn’t take her very long to get to Tulane. She gets to Hope’s dorm and shows her ID to the girl behind the desk and after an agonizingly long amount of time, is let inside. Hayley sprints to Hope’s dorm room and knocks, three quick raps. 

Daisy opens the door. “Hi Mom,” she greets and shoves aside. Hope is curled up into a ball on her bed. An air mattress is half deflated on the floor—Daisy’s bed for the weekend. Hope’s roommate, Amy, is nowhere to be found and after a minute or two Daisy mumbles something about _going home for the long weekend_ and Hope lifts her head up long enough to mumble _going to her boyfriend’s, actually._

Daisy rolls her eyes. She’s not fond of Amy, but Hope likes her fine and Hayley hasn’t heard of them having any issues so she doesn’t comment any further. 

“It was an accident,” Hope says and then she bursts into tears. 

Hayley quickly slides over to the bed and wraps herself around Hope tightly. She rubs her back and makes shushing noises and looks over to Daisy for an explanation. 

“He was a boy at a party. Some drunk frat boy who wouldn’t leave this girl from Hope’s history class alone. They were outside. The frat house is really old — there’s this balcony.” 

Hayley sucks in a breath. 

“Hope shoved him away from her when he grabbed at her again and… he lost his footing. Hope grabbed for him,” Daisy says, quickly defending her sister. As if Hayley would ever judge her for this. She is cursed with this because of Hayley. This part, this part is the real curse. The pain of the change is something that becomes a part of life, but this part, this part never leaves your bones. 

“I got a hold of his shirt,” Hope says. “But he slipped.” 

“There were a ton of witnesses,” Daisy says as Hope bursts back into tears and tucks her face into Hayley’s shoulder. “Me. The girl from her history class was sober. So was I. There were two other girls and another guy there who all saw Hope try to save him and that she was defending the girl. The police already came and talked to people.”

Hayley’s head whips up at that. 

“They aren’t charging her with anything. It wasn’t her fault. She had a good hold of him for a second, but the balcony broke and he fell over. There wasn’t anything you could have done,” she says to Hope. Clearly, something she that has been saying all night. Hope mumbles something incoherent into Hayley’s shoulder. 

Hayley rubs her back and Daisy eventually walks over and sits down on the other side of the bed, sort of leaning against Hope and the wall. Hayley knows that this might set Hope back. This year she has been doing so much better than she had her freshman year. 

Hayley wishes that Klaus was here. 

(Of course, The Hollow wasn’t the last of their enemies. Klaus had a thousand years worth following him around. It was something stupid, in the end. A rogue bitter enemy whose life Klaus ruined without thought. He made the mistake of thinking that he could go for Hope—an eye for an eye. Another old magic and a vengeful witch at his side and Klaus ran right into the fray without a second thought, Elijah at his side. Hayley thought that they would both rage and kill everyone in sight, but, instead, Klaus went willingly. A sacrifice, for his daughter. He gave her five years as a father—a true partner for Hayley in raising her and then he went into the unknown, with his brother, to save her life.

Hope hadn’t taken it well. She barely got out of bed during the summer and it took Hayley, Freya, and Rebekah to drag her off to Tulane in the fall. She had already been accepted and it was too late to change gears and go to Louisiana State with Daisy. She had planned on it, last year. One year there and then transferring, but summer rolled around and Hope was starting to find her footing. She had professors that she liked and it would mean starting all over again if she transferred, so she was going to give it another year, just in case).

Hayley rubs her back until Hope calms down again and then says. “Okay, let’s get some sleep.” 

Hope pushes Daisy into her bed and crawls down onto the air mattress with Hayley. It’s a very uncomfortable night with not very much sleep between the three of them. 

When they wake, Hayley drags them both into the showers and then outside to treat them for breakfast off-campus. They find an old-timey looking diner and pick at piles of pancakes with far too much maple syrup. 

Daisy and Hayley keep sharing looks over Hope’s head and she finally snaps at them both for it. 

Hayley quickly pays and then gets a hold of both of their arms and tells them to hold on. Hope screams and clutches Hayley while Daisy slams her head into Hayley’s back as she runs to the bayou. 

Daisy changed for the first real time here, too. 

Hope quickly starts shaking her head but Hayley grabs her hands. “You can change at will,” she says. “Anytime you want. I want you to embrace it, not to be afraid of it.” 

Daisy starts peeling her clothes off without preamble. Twenty-two years old and no longer the shy little thirteen-year-old that Hayley first met. Her daughter is brave and kind and wants to be a doctor like her Aunt Keelin. She is fiercely protective of her little sister who throws herself into helping anyone with almost no self-regard for own wellbeing. She loves helping babysit her little cousins. She has started going with Hayley occasionally to Faction meetings to learn the ropes. Hayley is so, so proud of her as she stands there, stark naked and smiles at her sister. Her clothes rest in a small pile at her feet as she closes her eyes, embraces the pain, and then a dark gray wolf stands in the grass, waiting for them. 

Hayley turns back to Hope and squeezes her hands. “It’s going to hurt,” she says. “But if you fight it, it will take longer. It could take hours.”

“HOURS?” Hope asks, horrified. 

“Only if you fight it,” Hayley says. “The pain… pain is a part of life, Hope. It’s awful, but you can’t know joy, love, or happiness without knowing pain, too. It’s a balance. Life is made up of both and to try and pretend otherwise… it’s only going to leave you wanting. It took your dad a long time to figure that out, but he did, in the end.” 

Hope looks down at the mention of Klaus, her shoulders breaking as she screams and still fights against the change a little. 

“Think about all the good things in your life,” Hayley tells her. “Let the pain wash over you and then linger on the good things.” 

Hayley watches her daughter, staying crouched down at her eye level as she writhes in the grass on her knees. Hayley counts the seconds, thinking of all the good things as if Hope can somehow read her mind. 

Freya, and Keelin, and little six-year-old Nik. 

Marcel. Lisina. Cami and Caroline and Lizzie and Josie. Ivy and Vincent. 

Rebekah, and Ayla, and Ryan. 

Hell, even Kol and Davina. 

The ghosts of Klaus and Elijah skate past her mind and she watches Hope suck in a sharp breath and grit her teeth. She breathes out, slow, shaky with the pain, but Hayley can tell that she is starting to let it in. She’s had a hard past two years, but her life is full of family who loves her, Hayley, most of all. Hope catches her eye, once, and then she screams and shifts and a small pure white wolf stands in front of Hayley. She laughs and cups the pup's face the same way that she did with Daisy, a million years ago. 

“I’m so proud of you,” she whispers. “Run as fast as you want.” Hayley steps back and shifts herself, and then she leaps up, the air of the bayou filling her lungs, and her daughters running at her side, the afternoon spilling out in front of them. 

* * *

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/184664496@N04/49498124203/in/dateposted/)


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